I wonder if they’ll report last nights midnight grosses…

There was only one theater playing it at midnight around which was weird. I remember Far From Home played everywhere near me.

Based on 2 chains I tracked Mario midnights were around 750K. It had limited shows and nothing like midnights we used have until TDKR.

Considering how the concept of 12:01am showtimes have been completely wiped out for consumers in the last decade, I'd say that it's pretty amazing that tens of thousands of people were willing to stay up so late on a Tuesday night in April to see an Illumination animated film.

Even something like Spiderman Far from home which was the last major movie to have midnights did not gross that much. Its around 3m or so if I am not wrong. Its crazy what Deathly Hallows 2 did (43.5m midnights). Since it was midnights it used to play in every screen in a multiplex. I remember seeing TDK at Regal and it sold out all 21 screens and there were lines from noon thursday. But with reserved seating(I would say is very good), early line days are long gone. We cannot recreate the era of TDK or before that Sith which blew up midnights like no other movie till then.

Waiting in line for midnight screenings was a lot of fun.

Deadline is saying 26m for Mario. Will probably be higher, it's 2pm on the West Coast.

Deadline is not bad estimating openers early but this is going higher as its almost behaving like a friday !!!!

Air on the other hand needs to amp up to hit 3.5m. That is possible as it should be driven by evening walkups.

I don't know if there's as much awareness of Air opening today as there was for Mario, not to mention less rush.If it can crack $3M today I feel like it should be good for a double-digit weekend followed by good legs (currently at 98% Verified on RT!).

Looking good for Mario. Even if the $26M projections turns out true that's the biggest Wednesday opening for a film since Despicable Me 2 nearly a whole decade ago.

That would be HUGE for Mario’s Wednesday if true. Was expecting more of a Shrek 2 type soft Wed bow before exploding.

It’s going to appeal to kids mainly. I doubt adults will care after weekend one. But that will still be enough to make a lot of money

Charlie is saying 33.5m for Mario !!!! That is crazy strong.

Air opening day will include gross from sneaks last weekend. Dont know how wide that was as i did not track the movie. Thinking mid 2s plus the sneaks. Assuming 0.5m sneaks, that would low 3s opening day.

Adults who grew up playing MOST of the Super Mario games, that happen to be millions around the world, will care. I call it!

I was at the F1 Grand Prix over the weekend and they had a Mario Kart kids area (I took my kids one of the days) and the lines were huge. Huge with both adults and kids.

Cinemascore is an A. Makes sense since the video game websites were the only ones giving it high scores. With a $33M opening wednesday, without previews, I'd say $400M+ total is looking good. Will it be enough for #1 on the year?

Agreed. The early preview times just don't have that same air of excitement. I wish midnight showings would come back for some movies. It was especially fun seeing horror movies late at night.

Why is Deadline giving such a precise estimate for the whole 5-day weekend based on.... Wednesday afternoon sales? At least give a range lol

Air - 3.27m including 925K in sneaks.

I hope it hits double digit over 3 days.

https://twitter.com/BoxOffice/status/16 ... 80384?s=20

Mario - 31.7m

Excellent for Super Mario. Good chance for it to be #1 domestic of the year.

Thursday looks to have a very soft drop. May be even 25% ish. Friday presales are monster high. Charlie thinks 200m is in play over 5 days. 175m should happen at this point. With the response seen, its going to go for 500m domestic. Its going to win domestic and world wide. Let us see where it ends overseas before seeing if FX or MI7 have any chance of beating that. FX is unlikely unless the franchise have a huge turn around but MI7 can explode in China.

Think we have a Shrek 2 / HP1 type scenario on our hands here. This is Day 1 (with no silly previews that now start at 2 pm!) and it has essentially a 6 day holiday opening of spread out grosses so the opening day is significantly subdued as people watch it over the next week and its still a massive daily.

I see a solid chance for Mario to be one of the top 3 highest grossing animated movies of all time.

No big family competition till June. Global appeal. Likely repeat viewings from families. Hitting every quadrant and even split among gender. Through the roof audience reception so far. It's the real life equivalent of The Simpsons' Itchy and Scratchy Movie on what could be the year of Mario.

The zeitgeist movie of 2023 is here. Summer has officially started.

Oh and Air did decently given the circumstances. It will be seen as a solid run over the next 6 days and hopefully holds well as it opens against a possible $500M+ monster.

Different month and holiday impact for Mario but Shrek 2's dailies adjusted:

Wed - $17.8M
Thu - $13.8M
Fri - $42.8M
Sat - $67.6M
Sun - $52.7M

3day - $163.1M, 5day - $194.7M

Mario's Wed - Fri will make up a bigger chunk than Shrek 2's Fri - Sun due to Easter and Spring Break.

It's way too early off of 1 day but best case scenario if everything possibly goes right would be something close to The Incredibles 2 ($621,223,504) and Shrek 2 ($665,746,933) adjusted tallies. Again, that would require everything possibly going right from repeat viewings.

So for the fun of it, off of just the first day of box office, I'll give Mario a final domestic tally of $643.5M (#11 of all time), the midpoint of The Incredibles 2 and Shrek 2 box office gross. I'll make adjustments as more daily numbers pop up.

Mario 400 mil+ is an industry changer that will usher in the video game movies. The test will be if other Smash Bro characters like Kirby and Starfox can become the equivalent of Thor or Iron Man type guys that were B list superheroes before they got elevated by the movie adaptations. I think for live action stuff they should try franchises like Final Fantasy, Starcraft, Diablo, and Pokemon needs live action Ash.

Also shows how insanely untapped the Pokemon franchise is. Detective Pikachu doing a $144M and $450M WW in 2019. Pokemon The First Movie now adjusts to $157,962,271 from 1999.

Anime has grown so much over those two decades and a solid Pokemon animated movie could do $300M+ if done right and characters from the cartoon. Feels like there was lots of $$$ left on the table that Detective Pikachu didn't get but could have with a different type of movie.

200m 5-day would be crazy lol what

Friday is definitely 50m+. Saturday should stay flat and sunday will see a big drop. Probably need 55m to keep 200m in play. Definitely in play I would say.