Who says people don’t go to the movies? That stale cynicism coming out of the pandemic is about to get squashed this weekend as Illumination/Universal’s The Super Mario Bros Movie is about to run up a serious box office score. With a Wednesday opening before Easter around the world, inclusive of 70 offshore markets, the Nintendo co-production is looking at a $225 million-plus opening frame. Separated out, that’s $125M+ in U.S./Canada in 4,000 theaters over Wednesday through Sunday, and another $100M+ abroad.
While weighted over a different number of days ( five days overseas and three domestic), Disney/Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania currently stands as the best worldwide opening for an MPA title year-to-date at $225.3M. It would not be shocking if Super Mario Bros outstrips that. Stateside, Illumination/Universal’s Minions: Rise of Gru posted the best opening for an animated movie during the Covid era with a $107M three-day and $123M four-day cume. Rise of Gru finaled at a near $370M and $939.6M worldwide.
Reviews haven’t hit Rotten Tomatoes yet, but let’s face it, this long-awaited, proper adaptation of the 38-year-old video game, super-stunted with a star voice-over cast that includes Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Sebastian Maniscalco, Fred Armisen, Keegan-Michael Key and more, is critic-proof. Also working in Super Mario Bros’ favor is spring break, with Good Friday touting 80% of K-12 and 31% of colleges on break.
When comped to the previous record opening for a video game feature adaptation, Paramount/Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ($72.1M U.S. a year ago), Super Mario Bros is outmaneuvering the blue protagonist across the board, in first choice, men over/under 25, and women over/under 25. The previous Disney-released 1993 live-action feature based on the Nintendo video game — starring the late Bob Hoskins as Mario, John Leguizamo as Luigi and Dennis Hopper as King Koopa — tanked, making $39M worldwide off a near-$50M production cost. Why didn’t that version work? Fans didn’t find it faithful to the original games. This version, co-directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic (creators of Teen Titans Go!, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies), is more gospel to the game.
Super Mario Bros’ Wednesday includes starts in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia and China, notably. It will expand through Friday to include Brazil, the UK and India among the majors. Sitting out the opening suite is the Middle East, which goes April 20, followed by Korea on April 26 and Japan on April 28.
In terms of offshore comps, we’re looking at other Illumination titles as well as pandemic- and Easter-corridor releases. As of now, Super Mario Bros leads presales on Wednesday in China, but the current mercurial nature of the market calls for a cautious approach. We’re simply told on U.S. advance tickets sales that they’re robust.
With that in mind, let’s look at the comps when backing out China. The biggest is 2015’s Minions at $111.5M in like-for-like markets and at today’s rates. Next up is 2019’s Toy Story 4 at $100.4M, followed by 2017’s Despicable Me 3 with $94.4M (note that when including China that skyrockets to $159M, but again, caution prevails). Similarly, 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 got a big boost from China, but without it bowed to $85M at today’s rates. That was also an Easter release.
Also debuting Wednesday is the Ben Affleck-directed and -starring, adult-skewing Air from Amazon Studios, Skydance Sports, Artists Equity and Mandalay Pictures. As we previously reported, the movie about how Nike locked down basketball icon Michael Jordan in his youth to create the Air Jordan sneaker is a big deal for Amazon, repping its continued return to theatrical following the current $258.5M+ global-grossing take of MGM’s Creed III. Back in January, it was announced that Amazon pivoted the release after the movie tested through the roof. Late MGM/Amazon distribution chief Erik Lomis was a big champion of the film and its theatrical prospects.
On the conservative side, Air‘s five-day total is pegged between $16M-$18M at 3,500 theaters. Men and women over 25 are the target, and there’s a lot of hope by many in the industry that this inspirational underdog comedy goes far this spring; older adult-skewing films are still iffy in the post-Covid market, though positive ones have broken through (i.e. Elvis, Ticket to Paradise) to wider crowds.
Air reveals the unbelievable game-changing partnership between then-rookie Michael Jordan and Nike’s fledgling basketball division, which revolutionized the world of sports and contemporary culture with the Air Jordan brand. The story follows the career-defining gamble of an unconventional team with everything on the line, the uncompromising vision of a mother who knows the worth of her son’s immense talent, and the basketball phenom who would become the greatest of all time.
Damon plays maverick Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro and Affleck plays Nike co-founder Phil Knight, with Jason Bateman as Nike suit Rob Strasser, Chris Messina as Jordan’s agent David Falk, Matthew Maher as Peter Moore, Marlon Wayans as George Raveling, Chris Tucker as Nike exec Howard White, Viola Davis as Deloris Jordan, Gustaf Skarsgård as Horst Dassler and Julius Tennon as James Jordan. While Damon and Affleck starred together in such movies as Good Will Hunting, The Last Duel and Dogma, Air reps the first time that Affleck has directed his longtime co-Oscar winning Good Will Hunting friend. Artists Equity was formed last year by Affleck, Damon and RedBird Capital.
Following a SXSW premiere, as well as premieres in NYC and Los Angeles, Air is currently 98% fresh off 61 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score of 99%.
Neither Super Mario Bros nor Air will have Tuesday previews. Why? It’s a discount ticket day and best to reap the most bucks on opening day Wednesday for both distributors.
Paramount/eOne’s second weekend of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves expects to ease by 45% from its now $37.2M opening for around $20M.