‘Mario’ Continues Record-Breaking Box Office Speedrun In Its Sophomore Weekend, Now Highest-Grossing Video Game Adaptation Ever

Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie continued to outperform projections during its second weekend and now sits at an incredible $677.9 million globally, with $347.8 coming from North American theaters and $330.1 million from abroad.

Mario’s domestic performance

Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie raked in $87 million over its second weekend in theaters, with ticket sales dropping only 41% from its debut the week before. Broken down daily, Mario’s weekend went Friday at $22.6 million, Saturday at $39.5 million, and Sunday at $24.9 million.

After just two weekends in cinemas, the Universal Pictures-distributed film is already the highest-grossing film of 2023 in North America, passing Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s $212.9 million.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie had the second-best weekend ever for an animated film, although right now its totals are estimates. The film’s sophomore weekend total sits neck-and-neck with Frozen 2’s $85.9 million, so it’s possible that Mario could drop to third if the number falls just a bit. It’s worth noting that Frozen 2 sold more tickets than did Mario, but inflation is working in the cartoon plumber’s favor.

Mario’s international performance

Over its second weekend, Mario’s overseas total hit $94.1 million for an impressive 28% drop from the previous weekend’s historic opening.

The film is already the number-one 2023 release in 26 overseas markets including Mexico, U.K. and Ireland, Spain, Germany, and Australia. It’s likely to continue putting up stellar international numbers as well, with major markets including South Korea and Japan set to release the film on April 26 and 28 respectively.

Mario’s global performance

The Super Mario Bros. Movie was easily the biggest film in the world over the weekend, and has already passed Full River Red’s total box office haul of $673.6 million, which was the previous best for a film released in 2023. Mario is now also the biggest video game adaptation in history, blazing past Warcraft ($439 million) and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu ($449 million).

Suzume’s North American debut weekend

Crunchyroll debuted Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume in the States over the weekend, where it earned a modest $5 million estimated gross. That puts it level with the $5 million total domestic haul of Shinkai’s modern classic Your Name and has Suzume looking likely to pass Weathering with You’s $8.1 million by next week. That said, $5 million is underwhelming when held against other recent Crunchyroll releases like Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, and even One Piece Film Red, the later of which also had a lukewarm debut.

Globally, Suzume continues to be a bona fide hit and has now grossed $272.4 million from 39 territories. The film is in the middle of a torrid run at the Chinese box office and has grossed more than $109 million so far. It’s also done massive numbers in South Korea and in its native Japan.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman’s opening weekend

Speaking of modest debuts, Zeitgeist Pictures debuted Pierre Földes’ Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman in just two U.S. theaters over the weekend, but pulled in a solid $7,400 total for $3,700 per location. It’s impossible to draw many conclusions from the performance, but we’ll keep an eye on what the film does as it becomes more widely available.