The Super Mario Bros Movie

It is Super Mario’s World

Now that it is April, the summer blockbuster season is beginning to heat up with several big blockbuster hopefuls entering the ring. As always, we turn to the incredible The Numbers for the latest in box office projections.

This past weekend brought six new wide releases and Mario, in his second week, beat them all with little to no effort. The Super Mario Bros Movie has laid waste to the worldwide box office in stunning fashion. This is a movie that critics panned for various reasons legitimate or not. However, fans have given it high marks. The divide between critics and fans concerning movies dealing with pop culture continues to persist.

The Super Mario Bros Movie came in first place with a monstrous $87 million at the domestic box office. This is even better than predictions for this second weekend. This was just a 41% decline which is amazing. The Super Mario Bros Movie’s total box office to $678 million worldwide. And this movie has not even opened in Japan or South Korea, yet. Insane.

The production budget was $100 million. The estimated marketing budget was probably around $150 million. Considering Universal gets about 55% of the domestic box office and $40-45% of the international box office and 25% of the Chinese box office, this movie is already well into the black, and Universal is in pure profit mode.

It appears that The Super Mario Bros Movie is an unstoppable juggernaut. and this movie might become the biggest movie of 2023. The question now is if Mario can catch Gru and his $939 million worldwide box office in 2022. Universal has to be happy to dominate the animated family movie category for the second year in a row. On the other hand, Disney has to wonder what they have done to surrender their crown to Universal in such a dramatic fashion.

The Pope’s Exorcist debuted this past weekend and grabbed an incredibly distant second place with $9.1 million domestically. This movie stands at $36.5 million at the worldwide box office. That is not much, but this was a cheap movie to make. The production budget was just $18 million. The marketing budget is tough to know. A similar movie in The Black Phone spent an estimated $72 million on marketing in 2022. That would mean The Pope’s Exorcist needs to get around the $180 million worldwide box office in order for Sony to be in the black.

In its fourth week, John Wick: Chapter 4 came in third place with $7.9 million domestically. This brings the worldwide box office up to $349 million. This means that John Wick: Chapter 4 has already earned more at the worldwide box office than John Wick: Chapter 3, John Wick: Chapter Two, and John Wick.

The production budget was $100 million. The estimated marketing budget for a blockbuster is usually around $100-150 million. That would mean that John Wick: Chapter 4 needs to make roughly $500 million at the worldwide box office for Lionsgate to start earning a profit.

Renfield debuted at the box office last weekend and took fourth place with $7.77 million domestically and $10 million worldwide. The production budget is $86 million. Again, based on prior numbers, a movie this size probably has around a $75 million marketing budget. This means Renfield must earn roughly $322 million at the worldwide box office to turn a profit.

In its second week, AIR slipped to fifth place with $7.72 million. This brings its worldwide box office up to $54 million. The production budget for this movie was $90 million. In the past, a movie this size numbers would have a marketing budget of around $75 million. This means that AIR would need to make roughly $330 million at the worldwide box office in order to start making a profit. Things are not looking up for AIR.

In its third week, Dungeons & Dragons slumped to sixth place with $7.3 million domestically. This brings the worldwide box office to just $157 million. The production budget was $150 million. The marketing budget for this hopeful blockbuster would probably be around $150 million. This means that Dungeons & Dragons would need to make $600 million for Paramount to make a profit. This movie looks to be a huge bomb for Paramount.

Dungeons & Dragons tanking in the box office does not surprise me at all. I had low expectations for this movie prior to its debut. The trailers and the interviews with the director and writers raised red flags all over the place for me. I was not sure they understood what the general public was going to want from this franchise.

It looks like Mario should have no problem in the upcoming third weekend which will bring the debuts of The Covenant, Chevalier, and Evil Dead Rise. None of those three movies is going to even remotely be a threat to The Super Mario Bros Movie. It looks like The Super Mario Bros Movie may not see any real competition at all until the May 5, 2023 debut of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. That should give The Super Mario Bros Movie several weeks in the clear to try to make a run at a $1 billion worldwide box office.

All right, that is it for this week! Until next week, be good and stay safe.