Box Office Report: Rise Mario, Rise!

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | April 23, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | April 23, 2023 |

Three weeks in and the world’s most famous plumber is still atop the box office. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is comfortably dominant, with an extra $58.2 million in the bank this past weekend. Domestically, it’s brought in an impressive $434.3 million. That’s only about $40 million short of the worldwide total of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Nintendo’s might is unquestionable. Remember, Mario is one of the most profitable pop culture brands of all time.

While the family movie did gangbusters, business was also pretty solid for a very adult film, Evil Dead Rise. The latest addition to the horror franchise grossed $23.5 million from 3,402 theaters. That puts it WAY ahead of Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant. Despite strong reviews — it’s good, I swear! — the Jake Gyllenhaal war drama only earned $6.2 million from 2,611 theaters.

A24’s Beau is Afraid continues to divide critics, but for now, people are going to the cinema to see it. As it expanded into 965 theaters this past weekend, its gross increased a staggering 782.3%! It remains to be seen if Ari Aster’s nightmare comedy has legs in the long term.

In other new releases, the historical drama Chevalier debuted at number 11 with $1.5 million from 1,275 theaters. Right behind it is the Ray Romano drama Somewhere in Queens, with $681,770 from 602 locations.

The biggest drop of the weekend came in the form of Mafia Mamma. Toni Collette has raved about the experience of making that film but the actual movie was badly reviewed and struggled to make a foothold in a busy month. So, in its second week, it went from number eight to number 16, dropping 76.5% in terms of gross. Owie.

This coming week sees the release of the long-awaited Judy Blume adaptation Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, the boxing biopic Big George Foreman, and a movie called Freaks Versus the Reich. Huh.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.