Box Office: ‘Super Mario Bros’ Thwomps Record Books With $377M Debut

  1. The Super Mario Bros Movie (review)- $146.3M/$204.6M

Gee, you think Nintendo regrets waiting so long to dive back into the movie market with The Super Mario Bros Movie? The iconic plumber threw a wrench in the competition with an amazing $204M five-day total, and record-breaking $377M worldwide for animation. That gives the animated film the largest opening weekend of the year, beating Marvel’s Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania. It’s also the second-largest domestic animated debut ever behind 2016’s Finding Dory. Not only that, but Jack Black’s power ballad “Peaches”, in which the villain Bowser pours his heart out for Princess Peach, is rapidly climbing the music charts and could drive the film to even greater box office heights.

2. John Wick: Chapter 4– $14.6M/$147M

3. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves– $14.5M/$62.2M

4. Air (review)- $14.4M/$20.2M

His Airness couldn’t topple Mario and Luigi at the box office, but it was still a solid $20M debut for Air. The Ben Affleck/Matt Damon film about Nike’s trailblazing partnership with a rookie Michael Jordan is Amazon Stuidos’ first major national theatrical release, and it’ll be interesting to see if it leads to more.

5. Scream VI– $3.3M/$103.8M

6. His Only Son– $3.2M/$11M

7. Creed III– $2.8M/$153.2M

8. Shazam! Fury of the Gods– $1.6M/$56.6M

9. Paint (review)- $750K

The Owen Wilson comedy Paint, in which he plays a Bob Ross-esque public television artist, was treated by audiences like the oddity that it appeared to be…and full disclosure, that it is. Weird movie. Anyway, the IFC Films release earned $750K at 819 theaters. My first thought was that ten or fifteen years ago an Owen Wilson comedy, any of them, would’ve commanded a lot more attention.

10. A Thousand and One– $600K/$2.9M

 

Travis Hopson
Travis Hopson has been reviewing movies before he even knew there was such a thing. Having grown up on a combination of bad '80s movies, pro wrestling, comic books, and hip-hop, Travis is uniquely positioned to geek out on just about everything under the sun. A vampire who walks during the day and refuses to sleep, Travis is the co-creator and lead writer for Punch Drunk Critics. He is also a contributor to Good Morning Washington, WBAL Morning News, and WETA Around Town. In the five minutes a day he's not working, Travis is also a voice actor, podcaster, and Twitch gamer. Travis is a voting member of the Critics Choice Association (CCA), Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and Late Night programmer for the Lakefront Film Festival.