Super Mario crosses the billion dollar mark worldwide, while Margaret finds its prayers unanswered and George Foreman gets knocked out.
(Yes, this is super-late. I'll have last weekend's up early next week and this weekend's up before next weekend, knock on wood).
Another week, another haul of gold coins for The Super Mario Bros. Movie. The year's biggest film brought in another $40.8 million, the sixth-best fourth weekend of all time (5th if you discount American Sniper, which went wide after three weekends of limited release). That brings its domestic haul to $490.9 million. It has now passed Frozen II, meaning Mario has outgrossed every release from Walt Disney Animation Studios. It should pass Finding Dory this week to move to #2 on the all-time animation list. That said, it's still running behind Incredibles II, which, thanks to its June release date, is able to put up much stronger weekday numbers to make up for falling behind on the weekends. Whether Mario will be able to conquer Incredibles or find the title is in another castle will be determined by how well the film navigates the coming summer releases.
Evil Dead Rise held up pretty good for a horror title, falling only 50% to $12.1 million, for a ten-day gross of $44.3 million. It looks like its on pace to pass the 2011 remake of Evil Dead to become the highest grosser of the franchise (pun intended), though given that the first two films got limited releases during the 1980s, it isn't that impressive of an achievement. Still, there's no denying that Rise is going to be a profitable hit, so expect another Evil Dead movie to hit theaters sooner rather than later.
It took 53 years for Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret to finally be adapted into a movie. Maybe they shouldn't have waited so long. Despite solid reviews, the coming-of-age dramady, which retains the book's 70s setting, opened to a disappointing $6.7 million. As there isn't all that much with female appeal coming out in the coming weeks, with the exception of Book Club 2, this might be able to develop some decent legs, though it will still be a surprise if this is able to top $20 million.
Speaking of the 1970s, one franchise that has its roots in the decade that is still going strong is Star Wars. It's hard to deny that the grosses of the last two theatrical releases, Solo: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, were rather disappointing. However, it has now been nearly 3 1/2 years since Skywalker came and went, and perhaps its time for a new big screen adventure. That might be the message Disney takes from the 40th anniversary re-release of Return of the Jedi, which grossed an outstanding $5.1 million despite playing on only 475 screens. Unfortunately for the theaters that had it, the release, the first wide theatrical re-release for the film since 1997, was for one week only, timed for Star Wars Day. Still, don't be surprised if Disney decides to do something special with the original trilogy sooner rather than later.
In fifth, John Wick: Chapter 4 passed Chapter 3 to become the highest grosser of the franchise, though unlike the previous entries, this won't be near doubling that one's final gross. Wick shot up another $4.9 million to raise its gross to $176 million.
Probably the film most hurt by Super Mario Bros., fellow game adaption Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves stole $4.2 million for a disappointing total of $88.2 million. It now seems highly unlikely to pass the $100 million mark, making a sequel somewhat unlikely. Air might have grossed only about half of what Dungeons has made, but that's not bad for an adult drama, particularly one playing outside of awards season. The story of how Nike signed Michael Jordan picked up another $4 million, for a gross of $47.6 million.
A Bollywood movie hasn't cracked the Top 10 since Pathaan opened at #3 back in January. The genre finally returns to the chart thanks to Ponniyin Selvan: Part Two. The first film opened to 4 million back in September, while the shot-at-the-same-time follow-up picked up $3.8 million, good enough for 8th place. Like most Bollywood films, the first one was a one-week wonder, so expect this one to also nosedive during weekend #2
Despite the star power of Jake Gyllenhaal, not too many people are interested in Guy Ritchie's The Covenant, as the Afghanistan War movie falls to 9th this week, with a gross of $3.6 million. It's ten-day total is $12.3 million, which means it has pretty much doubled the final gross of Ritchie's other spring flop Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, which came and went in March. Still, The Covenant will likely end up on the wrong side of $20 million.
Unexpectedly opening in the Top 10 is the Finnish action thriller Sisu. The film, which sees a prospector (Jorma Tommila) take on a bunch of Nazis in the waning days of World War II, brought in $3.3 million. Given that Finnish movies rarely make a big impact on North American box office, it's probably not inaccurate to say this may already be the highest-grossing film from that country on this continent.
Finishing outside the Top 10, despite opening on 3 times as many screens, is the second flop sports biopic of April, Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World. Starring relative newcomer Khris Davis, Foreman got TKOed, opening to only $2.9 million, which at least is more than the basketball biopic Sweetwater did earlier this month.
Farther outside the top ten, historic musical drama Chevalier could only muster a ten-day total of $2.8 million. We'll see if the film can muster a bigger audience on streaming.
From 2007 to 2017, nearly every first weekend in May has seen the summer movie season launch with a Marvel movie. In 2018 and 2019, the first weekend of May was the second weekend of the new Marvel movie, as Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame both launched the last weekend of April. 2020 and 2021 saw the pattern disrupted by the pandemic. But the tradition returned last year with the early May launch of Doctor Strange in the Mulitverse of Madness, and will continue this year with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. This is likely to be the final go-around for the team in their current iteration (Dave Bautista, for one, has made it clear he's done with the franchise). Since the beginning of the pandemic, the MCU hasn't exactly been going gangbusters, either critically or commercially. Will Guardians be able to, to quote another Disney-owned sci-fi franchise, restore some balance to the Force? We'll find out this weekend.
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