The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal Pictures/Illumination image)
April 9, 2023
Universal Pictures/Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie has hit a grand slam homerun, generating an estimated $378 million in worldwide ticket sales through the extended April 9 Easter weekend — including a record $204 million across North American screens when including April 5-6 screenings.
The tally is not only the highest North American box office opening of the year, it tops the previous all-time global animation openings for Disney’s Finding Dory in 2016, and Frozen 2 in November 2019. Super Mario generated about $146 million in North American ticket sales across the April 7-9 period.
With a 96% Rotten Tomatoes online critics score, and strong appeal among the coveted family audience, Super Mario appears to have strong theatrical legs going forward — and marks another future hit movie earmarked for the Peacock streaming platform sometime this summer.
Separately, Amazon Studios’ Air, the enhanced sports drama surrounding the association between emerging basketball superstar Michael Jordan and Nike for the creation of the Air Jordan basketball shoe in the 1980s, generated $20 million in its North American debut to finish No. 2 across the Easter weekend.
The movie co-stars Ben Affleck as Nike founder Phil Knight, Matt Damon as Nike’s budding market genius Sonny Vaccaro, Jason Bateman as Nike (future Adidas) executive Rob Strasser, and Oscar winner Viola Davis as Jordan’s mom, with Affleck also directing the movie.
Lionsgate’s John Wick: Chapter 4 generated another $14.6 million to up its three-week total past $304 million globally, including $147 million across North America screens. The movie is on track to surpass John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum ($328 million) as the top-grossing installment in the franchise. The film debuts next week in South Korea and later this month across the Middle East.
Just behind was Paramount Pictures’ Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which saw another $14.5 million in projected ticket sales in its second weekend box office, upping the fantasy adventure’s global tally past $90 million. The 61% drop from its debut weekend suggests the movie could have trouble reaching surpassing its reported $150 million production budget.
Rounding out the Top 5 was Paramount’s Scream VI, which added $3.3 million in revenue to push the slasher movie’s global total past $103 million, supplanting Scream 2 ($101 million) as the top-grossing movie in the franchise.