High score, anyone?
The Super Mario Bros. Movie collected a staggering number of coins on its run to the box-office castle, karting away $146 million in North America alone during the traditional Friday-to-Sunday weekend. That in itself would’ve been the biggest opening of any film in 2023. But the Italian plumbers actually started their run on Wednesday, which brought its domestic tally to a monster-mia $204.6 million. Wowsers, bowsers!
It looked pretty peachy overseas, too, banking $173 million. That mushroomed its global total to $377 million. Super indeed.
Mario and Luigi set plenty of records along the way. In the realm of animated movies, only Incredibles 2 earned more than Mario in North America. And worldwide, Super Mario Bros. tops the field (besting Frozen II’s $358 million debut in the pre-COVID days of 2019). It’s also by far the biggest opening weekend for a movie adapted from a video game.
John Wick: Chapter 4 earned just a tenth of what The Super Mario Bros. Movie did, but its $14.6 million was still enough to push the dapper-dressing assassin into second place (according to early estimates for the traditional three-day weekend). Chapter 4 has now collected $147 million—more than enough to pay off any bounties on Mr. Wick’s head.
Last week’s champ, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves finished just an owlbear whisker (feather?) behind John Wick, closing the weekend with $14.5 million. That brings its treasure total to $62.3 million.
Speaking of close, Air—the historical drama of how Nike and Michael Jordan formed their lucrative partnership—finished just $32,000 behind Honor Among Thieves. That’s about what Jordan earns from Nike every 11 hours! Still, the nearly $14.5 million it made (we’re rounding up; estimates have it at $14,468,000) was better than many prognosticators expected, which suggests that Air still has plenty of jump left.
Scream VI closed out the top five with $3.3 million, pushing its total domestic gross to $103.8 million.
One Response
-And since the Mario movie didn’t open on a Friday, its “initial Friday” is the highest non-opening Friday of all time. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/top_non_opening_by_dow/?by_occasion=friday&ref_=bo_rl_rr
I really, really hope the Dungeons & Dragons movie (which I thought was spectacular and endowed with excellent writing) turns a profit. I doubt it will, especially when factoring in marketing costs.