DAJK

I don’t disagree with this. Minions and Puss walked so Mario could run.

Fun fact I noticed. Mario had a pretty similar 3-day opening as the next biggest Easter release, Furious 7. And already after just the SECOND WEEKEND, it’s already surpassed that film’s domestic total. Just nuts.

Looks better than 9 at least. Hopefully it can recapture the balance that 7-8 had where it was over the top and downright stupid, but the cast were having a blast that it's hard not to be infectious. 9 was just ridiculous imo.

I definitely feel like this franchise peaked... 10 years ago? That being said, this doesn't look half-bad. All the time Patrick Wilson has spent with James Wan has definitely allowed him to pick up on Wan's style. The trailer looks really well-shot, with some pretty good set-ups for scares, and good tension. Let's hope he pulls through with the film itself. But yea, even with the main cast returning, I don't see this opening above 20M.

Great number. The fact that this also posted a higher 2nd weekend than Maverick is nuts. 600M is happening imo.

Of course it could be critically well-received. Get the director of PIB2 or Dean DeBlois on board, lean a little into the action, and there you go. It’s been 12 days.

Mario just made 1.2B+ while D&D is going to struggle to reach 200M. A Puss in Boots 2/HTTYD style animated Zelda movie from someone like Dreamworks is likely the best way to go for this.

Part of Mario's insane drop this weekend is that it is from a true FSS opening. Had it opened on a Friday, with roughly 20M of Thursday previews rolled in, the drop would be closer to 50%. Which is still good, but not TGM levels.

Honestly a real shame how D&D is performing. Mario really has shown that video game (or I guess just “game”) properties can really connect when done right. And having seen the movie, this was definitely “done right.” Great movie, lots of fun, perfect tone for what it was going for. It’ll likely end with sub-200M worldwide. Would have loved to see a sequel but alas, Paramount will have to try something new to get another franchise.

Crumbling.

Wow, Pope's Exorcist definitely going to come in ahead of my prediction. Honestly wondering if it'll beat Renfield this weekend, given that I expect the latter to be much more frontloaded than a standard horror.

Damn, was really hoping for a Renfield breakout. Universal’s had a nice streak of crazy, wacky concepts this year.

Looks fun, but if something like Guardians isn’t able to catch on I don’t see how this does. Better than I was expecting for sure, I just hope the movie itself ends up being enjoyable.

But then you wouldn't have had the best scene in the entire movie lol (anyone who's seen it knows what I'm talking about).

2023 movies ranked so far: 1. Air 2. Creed 3 3. Missing

I couldn’t care less what the people who complain about “messages in movies” have to say. It’s been that way since the beginning of time. People are just letting themselves get riled up by Fox and co. and it’s tiring. That being said, of course “social issues” shouldn’t be the entire crutch of a marketing campaign. That would be bad business. I don’t think that’s what’s happening at all though. That’s just what people want to latch onto and focus on and outrage over. If someone can name me one Disney movie that entirely relied on “wokeism” or “social issues” to carry their marketing campaign, I dare you. It doesn’t happen. It’s a ridiculous argument.

Love hearing stories like this. I remember exactly where I was during that opening too. Last couple days of grade 10. Earlier in the week I had seen an early employee screening of the movie, and for a few days I just sat on it, not expecting at all what sort of juggernaut it was about to become. Friday morning i remember waking up and seeing the 18.75M Thursday number, thinking holy crap this thing might hit 150. Later that afternoon I remember there being some major high school drama among a bunch of people, so a lot of plans that night got canceled. So I ended up on the couch in my old home, updating the weekend thread as RTH’s numbers went up and up and up. Kind of nuts.

I don’t see him on here, just in the Telegram chat. Lmao was that BKB?

The budget can’t be super high for this, can it? Thinking 25-30 OW, maybe 75 DOM or so.

This’ll have a hefty second weekend tumble but will stabilize from there. Thinking 85 opening, 32-33 second weekend, 275 DOM.

Sadly not enough of the OGs left to remember that For context for our newer members, there was a Marvel fan who was very upset that JW was out grossing AoU in the summer of 2015, and they would come up with the most deadline-y-est of deadline maths to PROVE unequivocally that JW was going under AoU. Their evidence? ”Jurassic World is crumbling.”

So, on average across markets I'm tracking, Mario SO FAR today (3:45 PST), counting ONLY shows that have already started (not looking at evening pre-sales) is at 138% of Wednesday's TOTAL GROSS.

Totally, it's going to mostly play to the 15-40 crowd (I said hardly anyone above 35, but can bump that to 40 sure). Was just giving an example of how "older kids wanting to see a movie" doesn't pull out the whole family the way a 7-year-old does. I really think this is going to be more of a LEGO Movie box office wise than a Mario. I'm also expecting the quality to be there, so legs could be okay. But yea, hesitant to predict a massive breakout until I see this thing really start to pull beyond the memes. As far as summer breakouts go TGM-style, I'm thinking its either Flash or Indy.

It won’t be 4-quad the way Mario is. Unless the marketing shifts, I can’t see many people over 35 or so being really hyped to watch it. Mario has kids begging their parents to bring them, which Barbie won’t have. A kid who wants to see Mario, that’s 3-4 tickets sold right there. A 15-25 year old who wants to see Barbie, that’s 1 ticket. Not the most sound logic, but I don’t think the potential is quite there yet to break into Uber-blockbuster territory. LEGO movie seems like a fair bar. EDIT: plus the Barbie brand isn’t as relevant today as Mario is (at least from a marketing and branding perspective).

Hopefully this makes Universal reconsider putting FNAF day-and-date streaming. It’s not getting anywhere near Mario numbers even with an exclusive theatrical run, but it could easily do Megan numbers. Also as a Gen-Z myself, and probably the forum’s resident tiktoker, Barbie is going to be massive. It’s this year’s Rise of Gru. Wont be AS big as that film, but a 75/230 run wouldn’t surprise me.