Mario and Luigi definitely haven’t lost their touch at the box office, with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie already breaking 2026 records—and the weekend hasn’t even started yet. According to Deadline, the movie, in only two days of release, has already grossed $59.1 million. That’s pretty close to the original movie’s two-day performance ($58.2 million), but even still, we stick by our prediction that the movie won’t blast past the $200 million mark by the end of the holiday.
Why? Simple—the Wednesday-to-Thursday decline was 29%, which is steeper than the 16% dip the first movie suffered. That suggests it’s slightly more front-loaded than the first one. Even still, you can expect it to make more than $180 million over the holiday, which is still—by far—the biggest opening of the year.
However, a lot of us are also very curious to see how A24’s The Drama does. While no one expects it to pose any real threat to Project Hail Mary (in its third weekend), the jury is still out on whether it bests the $15 million opening for Zendaya’s last star vehicle, Challengers. It made $1.7 million last night, which is good, but also $200k less than what Challengers made on its preview night. However, The Drama also benefits from opening on a holiday weekend, when people will no doubt be more inclined to take in a movie. The real question will be how it fares once word gets out about its massive twist.
One thing worth keeping an eye on will be the movie’s CinemaScore. For those of you who may not know, every weekend audiences are asked to fill in exit polls in random markets for the week’s new releases. If a movie scores well, that guarantees good word of mouth and promises a hit movie (Project Hail Mary got an A). If a movie does poorly, then it’s bound to fare worse. Example—Robert Pattinson’s last movie, Die My Love, which co-starred Jennifer Lawrence and was rather “challenging,” got a D+ and tanked at the box office. The only exception to this rule is horror movies, as they often score poorly but are still hits.
What are you seeing this weekend? Let us know in the comments.
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