The Super Mario Bros. Movie smashed a ton of box-office records this weekend

It should be a surprise to absolutely no one, but The Super Mario Bros. Movie debuted at #1 at the box office this weekend. Not only did it take the top spot among some solid competition, but it also smashed practically every record possible for April releases and animated films. Not only did the brothers’ Mario have the highest opening for any film in April, but Nintendo’s animated feature took the highest opening for an animated film, the highest opening for a five-day opening period, the highest opening for Illumination Studios, and the highest opening for a video game adaptation. Wahoo!

As outlined by Variety, The Super Mario Bros. Movie opened to a ludicrous $377 million global debut. Domestically, it made $204.6 million, topping other juggernauts such as Jurassic World Dominion (which had $145 million domestically) and Fast and Furious 9 ($70 million). Universal’s president of domestic distribution, Jim Orr, said to the press, “It’s a tremendous worldwide debut, and the movie has a clear runway.”

There are a lot of different factors at play here. For one, Super Mario is one of the most recognizable names in gaming. Not only does Mario appeal to children, but to adults that grew up playing the games more than 30 years ago. As the same report states, this film hits a four-quadrant demographic of Adult Men, Adult Women, Young Men, and Young Women. Basically, everyone loves Mario.

There are a ton of other stats that The Super Mario Bros. Movie broke, but I’ll leave that for Variety’s coverage. As for the rest of the box office this weekend, John Wick: Chapter 4 continued to bring in the bucks while Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves slowly continues to climb up to profitability. After many years of not covering box office numbers, it’s nice to see that movies are doing well again.

Here are all of the domestic numbers for the weekend of April 7-9, 2023:

1. The Super Mario Bros Movie – $204.6 million
2. John Wick: Chapter 4 – $14.6 million
3. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – $14.5 million
4. Air – $14.46 million
5. Scream VI – $3.3 million
6. His Only Son – $3.25 million
7. Creed III – $2.8 million
8. Shazam! Fury of the Gods – $1.6 million
9. Paint – $750,000
10. A Thousand and One – $600,000