It was both a great and bad weekend at the box-office depending upon which film you were.
“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” remains the running champ, the film taking in a massive $87 million in its second weekend of release with a drop of just 41% from its debut.
That’s the best second weekend ever for an animated film. To date, the film has grossed $347.8 million in North America and $678 million globally and is on track to earn well over a billion by the time it ends its run.
The news wasn’t so rosy for the Nic Cage-led horror-comedy “Renfield” which appears to be DOA. The film opened in fourth place with a disappointing $7.7 million, falling short of expectations and not a good sign for a film with a costly $65 million budget. Poor reviews, both critically and a B- CinemaScore, suggest it’s not going to go well.
In fact “Renfield” came in behind the more cost-efficient Russell Crowe-led R-rated demonic thriller “The Pope’s Exorcist” in second with $9.1 million. Despite poor reviews for it, that film was made for $18 million and thus should make it to profitability.
“John Wick: Chapter 4” came in third with $7.9 million in its fourth weekend of release. It has now officially overtaken the third film to become the highest earner of the franchise to date, with $160.1 million domestically and $349 million globally.
Ben Affleck’s “Air” closed out the top five with $7.7 million and has pulled in $54 million worldwide to date – that’s not exactly good for a $90 million-budgeted film with a solid marketing budget and the first of a planned wave of Amazon Studios titles attempting to be sold on the benefit of theatrical exclusive windows.
The news was also not good for “Mafia Mamma,” the Toni Collette-led comedy debuting to a dismal $2.04 million. Anime film “Suzume” easily beat it – taking in $5 million in seventh place.
On the limited release front, Ari Aster’s highly divisive A24 film “Beau Is Afraid” grossed $320,396 on four screens – delivering a $80,099 per screen average which marks the biggest per-theater-average of the year so far.
Source: Variety
