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The Super Mario Bros. Movie (NASDAQ:CMCSA) repeatedly hit up the coin box over the holiday weekend, setting a number of records and easily taking the crown as 2023’s top opening picture.
The film, based on iconic Nintendo (OTCPK:NTDOY) characters, grossed $204M domestically in the five days since its opening last Wednesday, according to Comscore.
That sets an all-time record for the biggest five-day total from a Wednesday opener, surpassing the $200.1M drawn by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2009.
It showed up internationally as well, drawing $173M overseas to land at a global total of $377M in just five days. The movie, which cost about $100M to produce, is set to kick off a franchise based off the wild success (a stark contrast to 1993 live-action adaptation Super Mario Bros., which drew just $20.9M in its entire run).
The Super Mario Bros. Movie also benefited from the relative dearth of family-oriented films since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the traditional three-day weekend, Super Mario Bros. took in $146.l4M — about 72% of the whole industry’s domestic weekend total of $202.3M, according to Comscore figures.
Its more teen- and adult-oriented competition ended up in a very tight fight for a distant second place: At publish time, John Wick: Chapter 4 (NYSE:LGF.A) (LGF.B) was set for $14.6M over the three-day weekend, while Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (PARA) (PARAA) grossed $14.5M, and new entry Air (NASDAQ:AMZN) pulled $14.47M. (Air might have made up the ground if it were in 10 more theaters; it rolled out on just over 3,500 screens vs. D&D’s 3,856.)
Theaters were celebrating the shot in the arm. AMC Entertainment (AMC) was a top performer among Communications Services stocks Monday, up 7.8%; Cinemark (CNK) was just behind, up 7.5%, and other theater chains rose as well: Imax (IMAX) +5.4%; Marcus (MCS) +8.7%; Reading International (RDI) +4.9%; Cineplex (CGX:CA) +4.2% in Toronto and up 4.9% in U.S. trading.
AMC logged its busiest weekend of the year and its third-busiest since December 2019, registering 3.6M visitors over the three-day span, and noting that Saturday was its highest-revenue day domestically since reopening in 2020. Cinemark (CNK) said it saw its highest-attendance day since Christmas Day 2019.
For its part, IMAX (IMAX) pulled $16.6M domestically and $21.6M worldwide, its best-performing animated opening.
