'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie' Jumps to Big Opening Weekend

Spring has sprung and that means big movies for the season. First on deck is Illumination’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which came out Wednesday and expectedly became the big weekend winner. Per Variety, the movie opened to $372.5 million worldwide. Its total is slightly behind the $375 million open of 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and the same goes for its North American numbers territories: in the five-day timeframe, Galaxy opened to $190 million compared to its predecessor’s $204 million start. Internationally, it fared better, earning $182.4 million (v. the first’s $171 million). Leading up to release, Illumination was marketing the Super Mario Galaxy Movie everywhere it could. Amid discourse over its negative reviews and the type of movies kids deserve, Galaxy was shared online throughout the weekend. It’s tough to say whether that affected the bottom line, but audiences mostly like it. The first Mario movie went on to make $1.3 billion worldwide, so we’ll see if the sequel can match that. One thing in Galaxy’s favor is it’s the only kids movie hitting theaters in April. This month’s big genre movies only come to Faces of Death (April 10), Lee Cronin’s The Mummy and No