rewrite this title Box Office: ‘Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ Opening to $34M First Day, Best Ever April

Out of the gate, Illumination/Nintendo/Universal’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie already is breaking records with a $34M Wednesday. That’s the best opening day so far this year — besting Amazon MGM Studios’ Project Hail Mary, which rang up a $33.1M Friday/previews — but it’s also the best opening Wednesday in April besting 2023’s Super Mario Bros Movie which brought in $31.7M. Keep in mind, no previews puffing up that figure.

That first chapter during Easter stretch 2023 went on to post a 3-day of $146.3M and 5-day of $204.6M (which was an all-time opening for Illumination). Note forecasting a 3-day and 5-day from this point in time is tricky, and Uni sees the Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic directed sequel legging out to $128.2M over 3-days and $186M over 5 days (second best for Illumination), which sorry, even though it’s lower than the first, is still awesome by all box office standards. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score on Galaxy Movie stands at 91% which is a few notches below the 95% on the 2023 film. Critics didn’t like the first movie at 59% RT and they don’t like this one either at 44%. The sequel cost a net $110M to the original’s $100M production cost.

When do we know if this sequel plays above $200M in five days? Well, the trajectory for Super Mario Bros went like this: a -16% dip on Thursday ($26.5M) followed by a Good Friday spike of 106% ($54.8M), followed by another spike on Saturday of 4% (the pic’s biggest day with $57M) followed by an Easter Sunday ease of -39% ($34.5M). With schools off on Friday, everybody goes to the movies.

If these 3-and-5-day numbers hold on Super Mario Galaxy Movie, then it will rep the biggest 5-Day domestic opening since Moana 2 ($225.4M), and the biggest 3-day opening since Wicked: For Good ($147M). Hands down, no question about it, Galaxy Movie will rep the biggest U.S./Canada opening YTD.

Another big deal if Galaxy Movie’s long-term weekend forecasts hold: The movie will join Shrek, Toy Story and Minions as the only animated franchises to have two titles open to more than $100M for three days at the domestic box office.