Illumination, Nintendo and Universal’s animated collaboration Super Mario Bros. at the Movies collected $146 million in its opening weekend and reached $204.6 million in the first five days of release in North America thanks to an effective advertising campaign, nostalgia for the video game series and a strong family attendance the audience At the international box office, the film collected $173 million, and the total worldwide collection now stands at $377.6 million.
The film is now ahead of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum of Solace ($106 million) for the best opening weekend of the year. It’s also the second-highest-grossing debut for an animated feature, surpassing 2016’s Finding Dory with $135.1 million, and Illumination’s highest-grossing opening ever (surpassing the $115.7 million earned by 2015’s Minions).
“Movie theaters around the world were filled with families as kids and adults alike were drawn to the shared entertainment of a perfectly executed video game adaptation,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at Comscore.
$100 million was spent on the production of the film. It was expected that “Super Mario Brothers” will collect $86 million in the first weekend, and $125 million in the first 5 days of screening.
“The box office was constantly growing. This result speaks to Nintendo’s tremendous love for these characters and Illumination’s storytelling,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic distribution.
“Mario” received particularly high attention in the Imax network, where it collected $16.6 million in US theaters and $21.6 worldwide.
Mario in the animated adaptation of the video game was voiced by Chris Pratt, Charlie Day – Luigi, Jack Black – Bowser, and the role of Princess Peach went to Anya Taylor-Joy. Directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenich showed the audience the story of a cheerful plumber who, together with his friends, tries to stop the almighty King Koopa. Critics gave mixed reviews to the film, but audience reactions were positive – the film received an “A” grade on CinemaScore.
The week’s other big debut, Ben Affleck’s Air – a sports business drama about Nike’s historic Michael Jordan deal – also rounded out the top five with a better-than-expected weekend ($14.6m) and top five rental days ($20).2 million). That’s not bad for an R-rated film and Amazon’s first theatrical release in quite some time. The company recently announced a commitment to release 12 to 15 new films in theaters each year. However, it is not clear what indicators should be achieved by “Air” in order for the experiment to be considered successful.
The production of the film cost $90 million. The main roles were played by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris Tucker and Viola Davis. “Air” also had strong attendances over the weekend and has an “A” rating on CinemaScore. Among ticket buyers, 55% are men, and 37% are between the ages of 18 and 34.
You can read our review here.
Overall, the battle for second, third and fourth place on the chart will be tight, with Sunday’s estimates separating Aire, John Wick 4 and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves by thousands of dollars.
John Wick 4, starring Keanu Reeves, added $14.6 million over the weekend, and has collected $147 million in North America and $300 million worldwide in just three weeks. So soon, the fourth part of Chad Stahelski’s neon action movie (which in the original version lasted 3 hours and 45 minutes) will break the record of the previous work of 2019 in $328 million and become the biggest earner in the franchise.
Meanwhile, Dungeons & Dragons took in $14.5 million from 3,856 theaters in its second run, down 61% from its opening weekend. So far, the fantastic film adaptation has about $62 million in the domestic box office. The production of the film cost $150 million.
In fifth place was Scream VI, which added $3.3 million from 2,286 theaters for a domestic total of $103.8 million, already better than 2022’s Scream at the North American box office $81 million, and which recently became the first installment in a long-running slasher series to reach the coveted $100 million mark.
Source: Variety
