The Super Mario Bros Movie scored the best second weekend ever for an animated movie in North American theatres with $87 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates.
The family-friendly Universal release dropped a slim 41 per cent from its record-making opening weekend.
With $94 million from international showings, “Mario’s” global total now stands at a staggering $678 million, surpassing “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” to become biggest film of 2023 in just two weekends.
For most blockbusters, second weekends are usually down by about 60 per cent, making “Mario’s” 41 per cent drop especially noteworthy.
According to Comscore, only a handful of films that opened over $100 million have had less of a fall, including “Shrek 2,” “Frozen 2,” 2002’s “Spider-Man,” “The Force Awakens” and 2016’s “The Jungle Book.”
“To the casual observer that may not seem like a big deal, but that is an important metric,” Dergarabedian said. “It’s the greatest indicator of audience love for the movie.”
“Mario” faced little major competition this weekend even with a slew of new national releases including “ Renfield,” “The Pope’s Exorcist,” “ Mafia Mamma ” and the animated “ Suzume.”
It still has two weekends before “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” flies into theaters to jumpstart the summer movie going season.
Sony and Screen Gem’s R-rated “The Pope’s Exorcist” starring Russell Crowe as the late Father Gabriele Amorth — the chief exorcist of the Diocese of Rome from 1986 to his death at 91 in 2016 — fared the best.
It made an estimated $9.2 million from 3,178 locations.
Third place went to “John Wick: Chapter 4” in its fourth weekend with $7.9 million.
The Lionsgate action pic has now made over $160.1 million domestically.
Universal’s “Renfield,” the supernatural thriller starring Nicolas Cage as Dracula and Nicholas Hoult as the title character, opened in fourth place with $7.8 million.
Some wondered if opening “Renfield” and “The Pope’s Exorcist” the same weekend — both R-rated and of similar genres — hurt the films.
But Dergarabedian said that while audiences may have been similar, “these films play for more than just one weekend.”
