The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Just Had The Biggest Box Office Opening Weekend Of 2026 But Fell Short In One Key Way

Now that we are getting into the middle months of 2026, the record books are starting to shift in more meaningful ways. Anticipated movies are arriving in theaters with higher and higher expectations, and that means that the superlative "biggest opening weekend of the year" is only being held for a couple weeks at a time. Case in point: Phil Lord and Chris Miller's Project Hail Mary had an awesome debut in late March and easily topped the three-day premiere figure for Kevin Williamson's Scream 7, but today the news has arrived that the sci-fi feature's crown has been stolen by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic's The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

This news is certainly not surprising, as the entire industry was aware that the new Nintendo blockbuster was going to become the big new #1 title in the immediate wake of its release... but there is a notable wrinkle in that it failed to outperform its predecessor, 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie. You can check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Is Unable To Outdo The Super Mario Bros. Movie In Its Debut

Without trying to be too cynical about it, sequels are produced in Hollywood to capitalize on popularity. When a movie does well at the box office, studios green light follow-ups in hopes of giving audiences more of what they evidently want – and the hope in doing so is that the second film makes even more than the first (with the assumption that the audience has only grown in the wake of the original's release thanks to word of mouth and the home video market). That doesn't always work out, however, and that's what we're seeing with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

To be clear: the latest collaboration between Nintendo and Illumination Entertainment is performing very well. According to The Numbers, the new video game adaptation made $130.9 million between Friday and Sunday, and because the film had a mid-week release, that means that its total domestic gross is already up to $190.1 million. In only about a third of the time, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has made over 87 percent of what Project Hail Mary has made in the United States and Canada thus far.

As noted, the film is the latest feature to earn the title "biggest debut of 2026," and it's not even particularly close: the Ryan Gosling led film previous earned the record with its $80.5 million start. In the current state of the industry, there is really nothing to complain about when it comes to making nine-figures in three days.

And yet, the numbers are a bit down compared to what The Super Mario Bros. Movie did a few years ago. On its way to earning $1.4 billion at the global box office during its full theatrical run, the animated feature made $146.4 million in its first Friday-to-Sunday, and because it too had a Wednesday release date, that meant it had $204.6 million banked domestically before its first Monday. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie couldn't match that performance.

What's interesting is that there are metrics beyond the numbers at the box office that match in saying movie-goers aren't digging the sequel as much as they liked the first. On Rotten Tomatoes, the Audience score (paired with a 41 percent positive reception from critics) sits at 89 percent, which is down from the 95 percent approval of the 2023 title. The results from CinemaScore surveys tell the exact same story: the new blockbuster got an "A-" grade compared to the "A" that its predecessor received.

It will be interesting to see if this is a trend that stretches into the coming weeks. There will be a lot of eyes on the second weekend performance of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie: in 2023, The Super Mario Bros. Movie saw its ticket sales dip just 37 percent weekend-to-weekend domestically; will the sequel be able to match it?

While questions linger about the details, I again emphasize that the film is doing extremely well on the big screen, and that narrative persists as one expands one's view to the global box office performance. The title has made $182.4 million in foreign markets to go with what it has made at home, bringing its worldwide total to an impressive $372.5 million in just a few days. The film wasn't inexpensive to make (Variety pins the budget at $110 million not counting publicity and marketing), but it's easily going to earn a big profit for all the studios involved.

The Drama Has To Settle For Third Place While Project Hail Mary Holds Strong

There was a zero percent chance that any feature other than The Super Mario Galaxy Movie was going to top the box office this weekend, but Kristoffer Borgli's The Drama arrived in wide release from A24 as counterprogramming for more adult crowds, and the results can be described as mixed. Unlike the video game blockbuster, the new movie starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson has produced for just $28 million, and early results say it has earned back a little more than half that figure its debut.

The movie has been a source of some controversy because of the secrecy surrounding the plot, but that evidently got a good number of people curious. The film did have to settle for the bronze medal, however, as Project Hail Mary continues to hold strong in its third week. The critically acclaimed adaptation of Andy Weir's hit novel of the same name added another $30 million to its domestic earnings in the last three days, meaning that it has crossed $200 million ($217.2 million to be exact. Worldwide, the film has now gone over $400 million, as it has made $420.8 million to date.

How will the current Top 10 be shaken up next week with the arrival of Daniel Goldhaber's horror film Faces of Death and Kat Coiro's romantic comedy You, Me & Tuscany? Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next week for a full analysis of everything that goes down, and check out our 2026 Movie Release Calendar to discover all of the big titles heading to theaters and streaming in the coming months.