Numbers have begun rolling in for the weekend and much to the surprise of no one, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is coming in far ahead of the pack with what is looking like a $72 million weekend. In our predictions from Thursday, I thought this one wouldn’t lose more than 50% but it looks like I was slightly off. Which isn’t to say this is bad news, quite the opposite actually. This will represent the best second weekend ever for Illumination, beating the $49.2 million Minions brought in in its second week.
Internationally the film is killing it with over $500 million as it currently holds the spot as the top grossing film of 2023. That’s pretty solid when you consider the last time we saw the plumbing heroes on the big screen they pulled in just $20.9 million worldwide total!
Right now second place looks to be pretty tight between The Pope’s Exorcist and Renfield, with the former on par for a $8.65 million weekend, while Renfield looks to only make about $7.55 million, a big disappointment for a film with a hefty $65 million budget. By contrast, Deadline is reporting that The Pope’s Exorcist only cost $18 million, and seems sure to make a profit. I definitely thought Renfield could get to double digits, especially since it is actually pretty good (check out our own David Arroyo’s 8/10 review here.) Meanwhile The Pope’s Exorcist doesn’t have that same level of praise (our own Tyler Nichols gave it a 6/10.)
Air will have a solid second week hold of around $7.3 million, representing just a 49% slide from last week. That is a huge bucket of win for not just Amazon studios but for R rated films aimed at adults. Great word of mouth is keeping this one afloat and even though Amazon only sees this big screen release as advertising for its eventual bow on the service, you can’t help but be enthusiastic about the performance this one is having in theaters.
John Wick: Chapter 4 is also continuing its stellar run with a projected $7,3 million weekend added to its over $150 domestic total. Hopefully the films success means we get the potential fifth movie. Further down the list will be the Crunchyroll studios release of Suzume with a projected $5 million opening while the Toni Collette starring Mafia Mamma actually looks like it may finish in the top ten with a low single digit opening.
Did you get the chance to make it to theaters yet this weekend? If so let us know what you saw (and how you liked it) in the comments and don’t forget to check back tomorrow when we have a full run down of this weekend’s box office numbers