Box Office Report for the Weekend of April 23

Mario Mania domination continues this weekend, as The Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s box office run shows no signs of slowing down. Despite mixed reviews, the movie has surpassed the $800 million mark this weekend and is on track to reach that coveted $1 billion by next week. Since the competition is fairly stale, Mario Bros. will likely be the highest-grossing movie of the week of April 30 before Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 inevitably takes over for the first weekend of May. Cinemas are still packed with audiences eager to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie, perhaps even repeat viewers going back for another round. Who knows how the rest of the year will unfold, but we have our first official box office juggernaut of 2023. It’s great to see theatres alive after a few years of hesitancy.

In terms of new movies during the week, there was plenty for audiences to choose from, and it looks like Evil Dead Rise made quite a splash (though splat seems more like the appropriate term here), grossing a neat $23.5 million domestic tally against a $19 million budget. The movie also made over $40.3 million worldwide, showing how good of a move it was to put it in theatres as opposed to HBO Max, where it was originally slated to release.

Now that audiences are less weary of movie theatres and have significantly gone back to the movies, it seems that major studios are dialing down on streaming-exclusive movies and see the viability of theatrical as a way to get as many eyes as possible on a movie, without paying X amount of money a month for a streaming service. As Warner Bros. moves away from MAX-exclusive films in favor of theatrical, streamers are joining the party for theatrical-exclusive movies, even if Netflix remains weary of this approach (but continues to lose endless amounts of money by doing so).

Interestingly enough, Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant opened in American theatres to modest success, ending in third place with a $6.3 million tally, but hasn’t opened elsewhere. The movie is slated to release on Prime Video in other countries sometime in May or June, though a specific date hasn’t yet been decided. This also happened with Ritchie’s last movie, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, whose original release was pulled due to the War in Ukraine.

And it looks like moviegoers want to enter the mind-bending trip of Ari Aster‘s Beau is Afraid. As it opened to more theatres, its box office gross saw an increase of 782.3%, opening at ninth place with an excellent $2.8 million tally, already the highest-grossing indie box office opener of 2023. The fact that IMAX even decided to release it in select theatres is honestly the greatest move I’ve seen from an exhibitor this year, showing how malleable the format is. It isn’t just reserved for blockbusters. IMAX can also be a great tool to immerse the audience into the madness that is Beau is Afraid. The film hasn’t left anyone in the middle. You’ll either love or flat-out hate it. One thing’s for sure: Aster’s career has not been killed. The film is doing very well in cinemas.

1. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal): $58.2M (-36.9%) – 4,350 theatres
2. Evil Dead Rise (Warner Bros.): $23.5M – 3,402 theatres
3. Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (MGM): $6.2M – 2,611 theatres
4. John Wick: Chapter 4 (Lionsgate): $5.7M (-28.5%) – 2,685 theatres
5. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Paramount): $5.4M (-28.3%) – 2,960 theatres
6. Air (Amazon Studios): $4.9M (-37%) – 2,823 theatres
7. The Pope’s Exorcist (Sony): $3.3M (-63.2%) – 3,178 theatres
8. Renfield (Universal): $3.1M (-61.3%) – 3,378 theatres
9. Beau is Afraid (A24): $2.8M (+782.3%) – 965 theatres
10. Suzume (Crunchyroll): $1.6M (-66.6%) – 2,170 theatres

Source: Box Office Mojo