Universal's “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” continues to dominate the North American box office, grossing $87 million in its second weekend and dropping only 41% from its record-breaking opening weekend. The family-friendly animated movie has now made a total of $678 million worldwide, surpassing “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” to become the biggest film of 2023 in just two weekends. Comscore senior media analyst, Paul Dergarabedian, called the box office performance “enormous” and highlighted the movie’s impressive 41% drop as an important metric of audience love for the film. Despite facing little major competition this weekend, “Mario” still has two weekends to perform before “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is released and kicks off the summer movie season.
Sony and Screen Gem's R-rated “The Pope’s Exorcist” starring Russell Crowe as the late Father Gabriele Amorth fared the best among the slew of new national releases, making an estimated $9.2 million from 3,178 locations. In third place was “John Wick: Chapter 4” in its fourth weekend with $7.9 million, followed by Universal's “Renfield,” starring Nicolas Cage as Dracula and Nicholas Hoult as the title character, which opened in fourth place with $7.8 million. Ben Affleck’s Air Jordan origin story “Air” rounded out the top five, with $7.7 million in its second weekend.
Makoto Shinkai's PG-rated anime “Suzume” released domestically by Sony, opened in 2,170 theaters and grossed an estimated $5 million in ticket sales. A24 also debuted its new Ari Aster R-rated mind-bender “Beau is Afraid,” starring Joaquin Phoenix, in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles where it made $320,396 over the weekend, boasting many sold-out showings. The 3-hour odyssey from the director of horror favorites “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” expands nationwide on Friday.
Dergarabedian noted that the diverse lineup of films currently in theaters rivals that of a streaming service in terms of depth and breadth of content. The final domestic figures will be released on Monday.