'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie' is a box office smash, with numbers similar to those of its predecessor

‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie‘ topped the weekend box office as expected, though its numbers exceeded forecasts. Specifically, since its release on Wednesday, the Nintendo and Illumination film has grossed $372.5 million at the global box office, a figure nearly identical to the $375 million achieved by the first film, ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie,’ in 2023. Overall, the film has performed slightly worse than the first one in the United States and slightly better in international markets.

Looking at the U.S. box office in detail, the film closed out the five-day weekend with $190 million across 4,252 screens, compared to the $204 million earned by the first installment. It’s worth noting that Universal released the film on Wednesday to capitalize on Holy Week, a holiday in many international territories but not in the United States, where schools are typically closed only on Friday.

As usual, we’ll have to wait and see if it manages to come close to the first film’s total box office take of $1.3 billion. However, with a budget of $110 million, it’s already safe to say that the film is proving to be more than profitable for the company. In terms of records, it is the best opening of the year in the United States and the second-best in history for Illumination, which is set to break all records this year with two films on the schedule, as ‘Minions & Monsters’ opens in June. It is also the third-best opening for a video game movie, behind its prequel and ‘A Minecraft Movie’.

With these figures, the U.S. box office is already performing 25% better than this time last year, and with more evenly distributed results that aren’t reliant on a single blockbuster. These are undoubtedly encouraging numbers following the downturn the pandemic caused in the film industry, from which it has not yet fully recovered. The strong lineup for the rest of the year—featuring family-friendly animation like ‘Minions & Monsters,’ Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated ‘The Odyssey,’ and the superhero films ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ and ‘Avengers: Doomsday’—suggests that 2026 could end up being a great year for movie theaters.

A Record for A24’s ‘The Drama’ as Well

Although Super Mario has dominated the headlines, A24’s controversial ‘The Drama’ premiered this weekend. The film, starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, debuted amid an intense promotional tour by its leads as well as controversial revelations about its plot and director. The result was a third-place finish at the box office with $14.4 million in gross receipts, marking one of A24’s best debuts. Adding international figures, it brought in a solid $28 million in its first weekend.

Despite this, the film couldn’t beat Ryan Gosling’s Project Hail Mary, which in its third week added another $30 million, down 43% from last week. In total, the Amazon MGM film has now grossed $637 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film so far in 2026. Fourth place at the U.S. box office went to ‘Hoppers,’ the Pixar film that in its fourth week earned $5.8 million for a cumulative total of $149.6 million in the U.S. These aren’t the numbers Pixar used to achieve, but they certainly outperform many of the studio’s recent releases.

‘Reminders of Him’ rounds out the top 5 of the box office chart with $2.3 million. It’s one of those “slow-burner” films that steadily rakes in money without making big headlines, but has already grossed $124 million against a budget of $25 million, making it more than profitable for its distributor, Universal. Finally, note the drop for ‘They’re Going to Kill You,’ which earned just $1.9 million in its second week and landed in seventh place. These are poor numbers given its meager $20 million budget. Even so, with $24 million in worldwide earnings, it will have a hard time turning a profit.