Super Mario dominates its second weekend, while it's already game over for most of the newcomers.
Fulfilling the "Super" in its title, The Super Mario Bros. Movie utterly dominated the post-holiday weekend. The animated video game spin-off collected $92.4 million worth of gold coins, for a 12-day total of $353.2 million. Among the titles it now claims is highest-grossing movie based on a video game, by a wide margin (the previous record holder, last year's Sonic the Hedgehog 2, topped out at $190.9 million). It should pass Minions: The Rise of Gru in the coming days to become the highest-grossing animated film of the pandemic era, and it has its sights set on Incredibles II, currently the biggest-grossing animated film, at $608.6 million. Mario has a bigger gross than Incredibles had at the end of its second weekend, and had a better overall second weekend, so short of an epic collapse (something that its excellent 37% drop from its opening weekend suggests isn't coming), Mario will likely become the first non-Disney movie since Shrek 2 to claim that crown.
Of course, Mario has already left previous highest-grossing 2023 release Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania well behind, and is running ahead of where Top Gun: Maverick was at the end of its second weekend. That suggests that Mario is in a strong position to end up as the year's highest-grossing film. That certainly is not a guarantee, but looking over the rest of the year's release schedule, while there are a number of certain blockbusters, there is nothing that is a guaranteed $500 million grosser domestic, much less the $600-$750 million that will likely be required to take down Mario. We'll see how the summer and holiday movie seasons play out, but if, come January, Mario lands at the top of the flagpole, don't be surprised.
Other movies played this weekend, though none of them did more than a fraction of what Mario did. In the battle of campy horror movies starring Oscar winners whose careers had seen better days, no one really expected The Pope's Exorcist to prevail. It arrived with considerably less hype than its competition, got worse reviews, opened on fewer screens, and cost a whole lot less money. But the Russell Crowe vehicle came in second with a surprise $9 million opening. What's more, the film is cheap enough that even if the box office collapses, as it likely will, it could still turn out to be profitable. Films like this don't do much to get Crowe back on the A-list, but it also means that his films will continue to be theatrical releases, rather than dumped straight onto a streaming service or onto VOD.
John Wick: Chapter 4 doesn't have the legs of its predecessors, but will still end up as the franchise's top grosser, even if its final number isn't too far above where Chapter 3 finished. The thriller took in $8.1 million, for a total of $160.2 million. Up next for the franchise is the John Wickless spin-off Ballerina, scheduled to hit theaters in June 2024.
The good news for Universal execs is that they're too busy dancing in the rain of the Super Mario Bros. grosses to probably care too much that Renfield, the much-hyped horror-comedy starring Nicholas Hoult as the title character and Nicolas Cage as his boss, Dracula, utterly bombed, opening in 4th with only $8 million, or a million less than what The Pope's Exorcist arrived with. The studio undoubtably greenlit this with the hopes that it could hit $100 million domestic, but it seems likely that it will end up making only about a fifth of that amount. Hopefully, this won't scare Cage back to his endless series of generic low-budget action movies he churned out for the better part of a decade.
Going into the weekend, I never would have guessed that the mega-opening video game spin-off would have a better second-weekend hold than the critically-acclaimed adult drama, but Air fell 46% from Easter weekend, which is actually not too bad of a hold in this day and age. The all-star, Ben Affleck-directed drama took in $7.9 million for a 12-day total of $33.4 million. This makes it about equal in both weekend and overall gross with another recent adult drama about an apparel company based on a true story, House of Gucci, which would go on to top out at $53.8 million, which would be a solid final gross for Air.
I don't know if Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves would have done much better elsewhere on the schedule, but it is clear that fellow game adaption Super Mario is taking a lot of its business. The action comedy brought in $7.5 million for a total of $74.3 million, a number that makes its chances of hitting $100 million domestic increasingly slim. Maybe the grosses will stabilize over the next couple of weekends, but looming out there at the beginning of May is Guardians of the Galaxy, which will likely ensure that Dragons is thrown into the box office dungeon.
While anime has been doing well at the North American box office as of late, the most successful titles have largely been spin-offs of TV series. The films of Makoto Shinkai have been the exceptions, as both Your Name and Weathering With You did solid business in the US. That explains why his latest, Suzume, got a wide release, the first non-TV adaption anime since Belle last year. Suzume has already outgrossed that title, opening to a decent $5 million. It seems likely to pass Weathering to become Shinkai's highest-grossing title in North America, and also seems likely to become the highest-grossing non-TV spinoff anime in this market since The Secret World of Arrietty in 2012.
The broad mob comedy Mafia Momma, starring Toni Collette as an ordinary American housewife who inexplicitly finds herself at the head of an Italian crime family, is the type of film that, these days, are much more likely to pop up as a Netflix original than in theaters. And with an opening of just $2 million, it's easy to see why. This one will be lucky if it has gotten past $5 million by the time it sleeps with the fishes.
Scream VI heads for the exit with another $1.5 million, bringing its gross to $106.8 million, or more than twice what the combined final gross of The Pope's Exorcist and Renfield is likely to be.
Rounding out the Top 10 was the weekend's third new horror movie, the little-heralded Nefarious, which could only manage $1.3 million. This one will be lucky to hit $3 million.
Opening outside the Top 10, below the 7-week-old Creed III and the 3-week-old His Only Son (both of which were playing in fewer theaters) was the week's final wide release, Sweetwater. The basketball drama attracted virtually no business, opening to a pathetic $351,000, or only $20,000 more than Beau is Afraid opened to on four screens. This is easily the worst opening of a film on more than 1,000 screens since another sports drama, National Champions, landed with a thud in December 2021. Based on the final gross of that one, Sweetwater is likely heading to a final gross somewhere between $0.5 million and $0.6 million.
Super Mario Bros. should easily dominate this weekend as well, as it has no real competition until the arrival of Guardians of the Galaxy in two weeks. There are a couple of titles hoping to slip into second, though. The most likely contender is Evil Dead Rise, which connects back to Sam Raimi's original movies of the 1980s (and not to the largely forgotten 2013 remake). Originally made for HBO Max, this, like February's Magic Mike's Last Dance, got re-routed to theaters instead. Also hoping for a decent debut is the latest from prolific director Guy Ritchie, who has somehow earned "name in title" status with Guy Ritchie's The Covenant, an Afghan war drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Also hoping to land in the Top Ten is the Chevalier, based on a true story, about a Black composer in the court of Louis XVI, and the aforementioned Beau is Afraid, which did incredible business in limited release last weekend, despite mixed reviews and a three-hour run time. Will Mario be able to stay above $50 million? Will Evil Dead or The Covenant take second? We'll find out next week.
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