Mario has blasted off, and the box office already knows it. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” the eagerly awaited sequel from Illumination, Nintendo, and Universal Pictures, launched to a stunning $34 million on its Wednesday opening day, April 1, landing the year’s single biggest opening day and the best opening Wednesday in the entire recorded history of April releases.
The figure is particularly remarkable because it arrived clean, with no traditional preview screenings padding the tally. That alone puts the result in sharper relief. The film surpassed “Project Hail Mary,” the Ryan Gosling-led Amazon MGM adventure that had been holding the year’s best opening day mark with $33.1 million from its Friday debut and previews combined. More symbolically, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” topped its own predecessor, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which posted $31.7 million on its own opening Wednesday in April 2023, a number that once felt untouchable for an April release.
Directed once again by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, with a screenplay from returning writer Matthew Fogel, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” reunites the full core voice cast. Chris Pratt returns as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Jack Black as Bowser, and Keegan-Michael Key as Toad. The sequel also introduces a notably starry wave of newcomers. Brie Larson voices Rosalina, a character at the center of the film’s cosmic storyline. Benny Safdie plays Bowser Jr. Donald Glover, who reportedly pitched himself directly to the production for the part, voices Yoshi. Glen Powell joins as Fox McCloud, the iconic protagonist of Nintendo’s “Star Fox” franchise, while Issa Rae and Luis Guzmán round out an impressive supporting lineup.
The story sends Mario, Luigi, and their friends on an adventure across outer space to rescue Princess Rosalina from Bowser Jr., who plans to harness her extraordinary powers to conquer the galaxy. The film draws directly from the beloved 2007 Nintendo game “Super Mario Galaxy” and its 2010 sequel, giving the production a rich visual and musical palette to work from. Composer Brian Tyler, who scored the first film, returns with a 70-piece orchestra performing arrangements of themes from across the “Super Mario Galaxy” games and the wider Mario franchise.
Universal’s internal forecasts project a three-day domestic haul of $128.2 million and a five-day total of $186 million, figures that would rank as the second-best opening in Illumination’s history. Box Office Pro is projecting an even more aggressive range of $150 to $165 million for the three-day and $185 to $200 million over five days. If those numbers hold, the film would represent the biggest five-day domestic opening since “Moana 2” posted $225.4 million and the biggest three-day since “Wicked: For Good” delivered $147 million. On a global scale, tracking points to a worldwide five-day opening in the neighborhood of $350 million, which would fall just short of the $387.8 million global debut that “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” managed in 2023, adjusted for currency fluctuations.
There is another record within reach that speaks to the longer-term legacy of the franchise. Should the three-day domestic total clear $100 million, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” will give Illumination and Nintendo the distinction of having produced two animated films that each opened above that domestic benchmark. Only three animated franchises have achieved that feat before, “Shrek,” “Toy Story,” and “Minions.” Joining that conversation would be a meaningful industry milestone for a franchise that only produced its first entry three years ago.
Critics, for their part, have been considerably less enthused than the paying public. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” holds a 43 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 110 reviews, with a Metacritic score of 37 out of 100, indicating generally unfavorable notices from professional critics. Audiences, however, have responded with considerably more warmth. CinemaScore polling gave the film an A minus grade, a strong commercial signal by any standard and only a notch below the straight A that “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” earned from audiences in 2023. The disconnect between critical and audience reception mirrors almost precisely the pattern of the original, which powered past indifferent reviews to gross $574.9 million domestically and $785.9 million internationally for a worldwide total of over $1.3 billion.
That precedent is the central reason the industry is watching “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” with such close attention. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” climbed from its $31.7 million Wednesday to a three-day of $146.3 million and a five-day of $204.6 million, an all-time record opening for Illumination. The trajectory of that film included a 16 percent dip on Thursday, a 106 percent spike on Good Friday as schools emptied and families descended on multiplexes, a further Saturday lift, and then an Easter Sunday ease. With a nearly identical calendar setup this Easter stretch, the industry is watching closely to see whether “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” can replicate or outpace that run.
The film opened in approximately 4,000 North American theaters, the same broad platform strategy Universal deployed for the first chapter. Advance ticket sales in North America were reportedly running slightly ahead of where “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” had been at the same point. The sole wide opener competing for screens this weekend is A24’s “The Drama,” starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, which is tracking around $15 million and is unlikely to put any meaningful dent in Mario’s momentum.
“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” premiered at Minami-za in Kyoto on March 28 before its North American theatrical release. An international rollout is underway, though several markets are sitting out the opening weekend. Japan, which ranked as the top-grossing offshore market for “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” with roughly $102 million in 2023, will not receive “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” until April 24. Poland and South Korea are also absent from the initial rollout. The film was produced on a reported budget of $110 million, not including promotional costs worldwide.
Whatever the final tally looks like by Monday morning, Wednesday’s number delivered an unambiguous statement. The Mushroom Kingdom is very much still open for business.
