Universal and Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a bona fide blockbuster.
The Nintendo video game adaptation is now on course to gross $80 million or more in its second weekend of play at the domestic box office from 4,371 theaters, notably more than expected and representing a drop of just 45 percent. By the end of Sunday, the PG pic will boast a domestic cume of more than $340 million and roughly $659 million globally.
The animated sensation smashed numerous records in its launch. And by mid-week, it became the top-grossing movie of the year to date at the domestic and worldwide box office after zooming past Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. It’s also now the No. 1 video game adaptation of all time after passing up Warcraft ($439.4 million) and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu ($449.8 million).
A plethora of new movies are opening nationwide this weekend to mixed results, led by Universal’s modern-day vampire comedy Renfield and Screen Gem’s supernatural thriller The Pope’s Exorcist.
Heading into the weekend, many analysts thought Renfield would place No. 2 behind Super Mario.
Now, however, it seems that Pope’s Exorcist is coming in ahead with a projected $8.5 million to $9 million from 3,178 theaters. Directed by Julius Avery, the film stars Russell Crowe as real-life figure Father Gabriele Amorth, a priest who acted as chief exorcist of the Vatican and who performed more than 100,000 exorcisms in his lifetime. (He passed away in 2016 at the age of 91.)
Daniel Zovatto and Russell Crowe in ‘The Pope’s Exorcist’
Courtesy of Sony Pictures
Renfield, which is on course to open to $7 million to $8 million from 3,375 cinemas, stars Nicholas Hoult in the titular role and Nicolas Cage as Count Dracula. The story follows Renfield as he tries to see if there’s another life for himself after serving for centuries as…
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