“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” soared higher than expected in its second weekend of release.

The animated adventure, from Universal, Nintendo and Illumination, took first place again with $92 million over the weekend, above Sunday’s already-huge estimate of $87 million. Those returns rank as the highest-grossing second weekend for an animated film, as well as the seventh-highest grossing second weekend for any film at the domestic box office, according to Universal.

Thanks to huge demand from family audiences and plenty of nostalgia, ticket sales for “Mario” declined only 37% from its mighty $146 million three-day start and currently stand at $353 million. That’s especially impressive because big-budget blockbusters — even well-received ones — generally plummet by 50% or more after scoring huge opening weekends. 

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” also notched a significant global milestone, crossing $700 million after just 13 days of release. So far, only 12 Hollywood releases have managed to surpass the $700 million mark since the pandemic. “Mario” currently stands as the second-biggest animated film of the pandemic, behind Universal and Illumination’s “Minions: The Rise of Gru” ($942.5 million).

The video game adaptation is primed to not only surpass the “Despicable Me” spinoff in terms of worldwide ticket sales, but it’s also expected to soon become the first movie of 2023 to cross $1 billion globally.

The box office milestones don’t stop there. After two weekends in theaters, “Mario” already stands as the highest-grossing film of the year at the domestic and global box office, surpassing “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” ($212 million domestically and $474 million globally). “Mario” also became the biggest video game adaptation in history, overtaking the totals of 2016’s “Warcraft” ($439 million) and “Pokémon: Detective Pikachu” ($449 million).

At the international box office, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” added $102 million in its second weekend of release, boosting its overseas tally to $339 million. Top markets include Mexico ($53.4 million), U.K. and Ireland ($44.3 million) and Germany ($29 million).

As Mario would say, “Wahoo!”

Source – Variety

- Agencies