17th April 2023, Mumbai: The Super Mario Bros. Movie from Universal and Illumination is a true box office smash and the year’s first film to surpass $1 billion in revenue globally. In its second weekend of release, the Nintendo video game adaptation brought in an impressive $85 million from 4,371 theatres in North America, which was far more than anticipated and represented a decline of just 41%. After topping Frozen 2 ($86 million), it also had the greatest second weekend for an animated movie ever.
Super Mario has earned a staggering $678 million worldwide as of Sunday after grossing $347.8 million domestically and $330 million internationally. Its strong second-weekend gross of $94 million from 71 markets after only a slight fall of 28 percent is included in its foreign total. With a massive $52 million, Mexico takes the lead, already ranking third among all countries for animated Hollywood movies.
During its lengthy Easter weekend debut, the cartoon phenomenon broke a number of records. And by the middle of the week, Mario had surpassed Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to become the most lucrative film of the year thus far in the domestic, international, and global box offices. Additionally, it has surpassed Warcraft ($439.4 million) and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu ($449.8 million) to become the most successful video game adaptation of all time.
Renfield, a contemporary vampire comedy from Universal, and The Pope’s Exorcist, a supernatural thriller from Screen Gem, were among the many new films that debuted this weekend around the country to mixed reviews. Many observers predicted Renfield would finish second to Super Mario before the weekend.
Pope’s Exorcist, however, triumphed with an estimated $9.2 million premiere from 3,178 theatres. Russell Crowe portrays Father Gabriele Amorth, a priest who served as the Vatican’s senior exorcist and carried out more than 100,000 exorcisms throughout his career, in the Julius Avery-directed movie. For a running international total of $27.4 million and a global total of $33.6 million, the film made an additional $10.4 million overseas from 51 markets, including a solid $1.1 million in Italy.
With an estimated $7.9 million and a domestic total of $160.1 million, holdover John Wick: Chapter 4 came in at No. 3. The film has made an additional $18.6 million from 76 foreign territories, bringing its impressive overseas total to $189.6 million and its global total to a franchise-high $349.7 million.