{"id":220226,"date":"2026-04-06T08:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T08:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/220226\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T08:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T08:25:13","slug":"the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-powers-up-box-office-with-biggest-opening-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/220226\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Super Mario Galaxy Movie\u2019 powers up box office with biggest opening of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixed reviews didn’t dissuade mass audiences from buying tickets to the “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,”<\/a> which scored the biggest opening of the year for a Hollywood movie. The Illumination and Nintendo co-production earned $130.9 million over the weekend and a massive $190.1 million in its first five days in North American theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday.<\/p>\n

Universal Pictures released the sequel globally on Wednesday, capitalizing on kids’ spring break vacations in the week leading up to the Easter holiday. With an estimated $182.4 million from 80 overseas markets, the film is looking at an astronomical $372.5 million debut \u2014 the latest hit for the PG rating<\/a>. Mexico is leading the international bunch with $29.1 million from 5,136 screens, followed by the U.K. and Ireland with $19.7 million.<\/p>\n

The animated sequel, Illumination CEO Christopher Meledandri’s 16th movie in 16 years, is the industry’s biggest debut since “Avatar: Fire and Ash”<\/a> launched over Christmas. The Chinese movie “Pegasus 3,” which was not a Motion Picture Association release, has the slight edge for the 2026 global record, however.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a dip from the first film, which opened to $204 million domestically during the same five-day time frame in 2023 ($147 of that was from Friday, Saturday and Sunday). \u201cThe Super Mario Bros. Movie\u201d went on to be the second biggest movie of 2023, with over $1.3 billion in box office receipts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Super Mario Galaxy Movie,\u201d which features returning voice actors Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Day, had a massive footprint in the U.S. and Canada, where it played in 4,252 theaters, including 421 IMAX and 1,345 premium large format screens. It made $15 million from the IMAX screens alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exactly the kind of broad, crowd-pleasing release that brings people into theatres,\u201d AMC Chairman and CEO Adam Aron said in a statement.<\/p>\n

It also cost around $110 million to make, not including marketing and promotion expenses. But it arrived on a wave of less-than-stellar reviews. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently sitting at a lousy 40%. Ticket buyers were more enthusiastic, however.<\/p>\n

The family audience gave the movie five out of five stars according to PostTrak exit polls, while general audiences gave it four stars and an A- on CinemsScore. Audiences skewed male (61%) overall, although when it came to families attending there were slightly more moms (52%) than dads.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese kind of audience reaction scores just point to a ridiculously strong run, not only throughout the spring, but likely into the summer as well,\u201d said Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic distribution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Super Mario Galaxy Movie\u201d will open in Japan later this month.<\/p>\n

Last year, the first weekend in April hosted the launch of another video game blockbuster, “A Minecraft Movie,”<\/a> which had a bigger three-day debut ($162.8 million) but didn’t have a “Project Hail Mary” in a strong second place, meaning the weekend overall is still up around 5%.<\/p>\n

As expected, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ended the two-week reign<\/a> of the Ryan Gosling-led sci-fi hit “Project Hail Mary,”<\/a> which landed in second its third weekend in theaters where it added $30.7 million, bringing its running domestic total to $217.2 million. Worldwide, it’s made $420.7 million to date.<\/p>\n

Third place went to A24’s provocative new movie “The Drama,”<\/a> starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, which made an estimated $14.4 million from 3,087 theaters. The film’s stars have been on a massive and charming press blitz to promote their R-rated movie about a engaged couple grappling with an unnerving revelation, which cost a reported $28 million to produce. The reveal has drummed up a fair amount of cultural discourse. While reviews have been more positive than not (82% on Rotten Tomatoes), it got a less promising B CinemaScore.<\/p>\n

\u201cHoppers\u201d and \u201cReminders of Him\u201d rounded out the top five. And the box office outlook looks bright overall, up around 30% from last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no better opening act for a great summer than a huge month of April powered by a mega blockbuster like the ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,'” said Paul Dergarabedian, comscore’s head of marketplace trends.<\/p>\n

Top 10 movies by domestic box office<\/p>\n

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:<\/p>\n

1.\u201cThe Super Mario Galaxy Movie,\u201d $130.9 million.<\/p>\n

2.\u201cProject Hail Mary,\u201d $30.7 million.<\/p>\n

3.\u201cThe Drama,\u201d $14.4 million.<\/p>\n

4.\u201cHoppers,\u201d $5.8 million.<\/p>\n

5.\u201cReminders of Him,\u201d $2.2 million.<\/p>\n

6.\u201cA Great Awakening,\u201d $2.1 million.<\/p>\n

7.\u201cThey Will Kill You,\u201d $1.9 million.<\/p>\n

8.\u201cDhurandhar The Revenge,\u201d $1.9 million.<\/p>\n

9.\u201cReady or Not 2: Here I Come,\u201d $1.8 million.<\/p>\n

10.\u201cScream 7,\u201d 915,000.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mixed reviews didn’t dissuade mass audiences from buying tickets to the “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which scored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[104,477,116,118,117,32264,5077,99837,1110],"class_list":{"0":"post-220226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-general-news","10":"tag-jacksonville","11":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","12":"tag-jacksonville-news","13":"tag-media-and-entertainment-industry","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-super-mario-galaxy-movie-box-office","16":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}