We head into May with the summer blockbuster fully firing on all cylinders. Several contenders have been exposed as box office bombs while The Super Mario Bros. Movie has risen to the top. As always, we turn to the incredible The Numbers for the latest in box office projections.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie continues exceeding all expectations and completely obliterating the competition. Super Mario Bros. hauled in another $40 million at the domestic box office. This brings The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s worldwide box office up to $1.02 billion. This estimate does not include the box office debut numbers from Japan or South Korea.
Undoubtedly, The Super Mario Bros. Movie will blow past Minions’ $1.15 billion worldwide box office and become Illumination’s highest-grossing film of all time.
How about the challenge to Disney’s Frozen II for the title of the highest-grossing animated film? The target to achieve that honor is to surpass $1.4 billion at the worldwide box office. That is still a fairly substantial gap. Plus, Super Mario’s run of no competition at the box office is going to end this upcoming Friday as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 debuts on May 5, 2023. It will be interesting to see how much Guardians is able to cut into Super Mario’s box office numbers.
While the MCU has had mixed success at the box office since Doctor Strange, I still believe that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will perform well at the box office. The Guardians franchise is popular and is more tied to the earlier MCU than it is with the floundering Phase 4 and Phase 5.
Evil Dead Rise held second place with another $12.2 million at the domestic box office. This brings the worldwide box office up to $86.5 million. We already did the numbers and Evil Dead Rise needs to make an estimated $90 million in order to be in the black. That is definitely happening by next weekend.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret? debuted in third place with $6.8 million at the domestic box office. There are no international box office numbers for this movie. This movie is based on the book of the same title written by Judy Blume that was published in 1970. My older sister loved this book when she was a kid. I would imagine that most Gen-X girls grew up reading this book.
This film had a $30 million production budget. Throw another estimated $30 million for marketing, meaning this movie needs to make $120 million at the box office to break even. It is still very early, but this movie is going to have an uphill battle to make a profit.
John Wick: Chapter 4 came in fourth place with $5 million at the domestic box office. This brings the worldwide box office up to $369 million. We already did the math and the worldwide box office target for this film to turn a profit is around $500 million. This is not going to happen. The money will have to come from licensing, rental, and streaming numbers in order to try and make up the difference.
Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi was rolled back out to the box office to remind fans how good Star Wars used to be before Disney acquired the franchise. This movie brought in $4.69 million at the domestic box office.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves slumped down to sixth place with $4.1 million at the domestic box office. This brings the worldwide box office total to just $194 million. This movie has really been a box-office disappointment for Paramount. We already did the math, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is not even remotely close to the estimated $330 million at the worldwide box office needed to break even.
Sisu debuted with $3.2 million in the domestic box office. The worldwide box office came to $5.4 million. Sisu’s production budget was $6.6 million. The estimated marketing budget was probably greater than the production budget given how cheap it was to make this movie. But, let’s go with at least another $6 million. That means this movie would have to make around $25 million at the worldwide box office in order to break even.
Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World debuted with $3 million at the domestic box office. First, this movie has to have one of the longest titles of any film in American cinematic history! Second, this film had a production budget of $32 million. Let’s go with at least a marking budget equal to the production budget. That means George Forman needs to make roughly $130 million in order to break even. It looks like this movie is fated to be a box office bomb.
All right, that is it for this week! We will be back next Monday to check out the upcoming battle between The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3! It should be fun! Until then, stay safe and be good!