Box Office Report for the Week of April 19

Another quiet week at the movies before the Michael fever hits the multiplexes, although there’s much to be excited about if you’re a theater exhibitor who just walked out of Caesar’s Palace buzzing at the prospect of studios heavily investing in movies made for the big screen. There seems to be a renewed interest in the theatrical experience, as evidenced by the recent successes of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Project Hail Mary.

The sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie is still the number one movie of the weekend, with a $35 million tally in its third weekend, and has now grossed more than $700 million globally. Time will tell how it fares against Michael, but Project Hail Mary is still holding very strong, with only a 15% drop from last week and grossing over $573 million one month after its theatrical release.

Demand for the film is still incredibly high; Ryan Gosling announced at CinemaCon that the theatrical run for Project Hail Mary will be extended, as audiences are still eager to see it big and loud. Whether it will become a major awards contender remains to be seen, but it is clearly positioning itself as a film no one can ignore when the time comes.

On the flip side, while Warner Bros. dazzled exhibitors in Las Vegas, they are having a difficult time wowing audiences with another box office disappointment in Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. I guess the repeated instances where Brendan Fraser isn’t in the film (spoiler: he isn’t) deterred moviegoers from giving it a chance, alongside mixed critical reception. The film garnered little interest, opening third domestically with $13.5 million and globally with $34 million.

Given that its budget was relatively small ($22 million, thanks to Blumhouse’s strategy of lower-cost films), it won’t be a huge loss for Warner Bros., but it certainly isn’t a great start for a studio that last year was on top of the world. The potentially incoming merger with Paramount/Skydance is also significantly souring things, but that’s a story for another time…

Here is the full list of the top ten films of the week:

1. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (Universal): $35M (-49%) – 4,170 theatres
2. Project Hail Mary (Amazon MGM Studios): $20.4M (-15%) – 3,820 theatres
3. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (Warner Bros.): $13.5M – 3,304 theatres
4. The Drama (A24): $4.8M (-44%) – 2,629 theatres
5. You, Me & Tuscany (Universal): $3.8M (-51%) – 3,157 theatres
6. Hoppers (Disney): $2.9M (-30%) – 2,475 theatres
7. Normal (Magnolia Pictures): $2.6M – 2,060 theatres
8. Busboys (Independent Films): $1.6M – 800 theatres
9. Bhooth Bangla (FunAsia Films): $977.582 – 500 theatres
10. A Great Awakening (Roadside Attractions): $823.667 (-36%) – 939 theatres

Source: Comscore