The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Project Hail Mary continue to rule the box office, while new horror pic Lee Cronin’s The Mummy opens in third place domestically with an estimated $12.5 million/
From Universal and Illumination, Super Mario stayed atop the North American chart in its third weekend with a better-than-expected $35 million for as it cleared the $350 million mark in North America. Overseas, it pulled in another $83.2 million to finish Sunday with a foreign tally of $392.2 million and just shy of $747.5 million globally. (In Israel, it became the first Hollywood to open in Israel since the ceasefire was declared and did decent business, according to Universal insiders.)
The Mario franchise has now earned a combined $2 billion globally to put it at No. 10 on the list of the top-grossing animated franchises of all time after already becoming the top-grossing Hollywood film of the year so far.
The landscape will change dramatically next weekend when Michael, Lionsgate’s Michael Jackson biopic opens, followed a week later by The Devil Wears Prada 2, which marks the official start of the summer box office.
Amazon MGM Studios’ Hail Mary continues its remarkable journey, falling only 23 percent in its fifth weekend to an estimated $18.5 million for a domestic cume of $283 million. The sleeper hit is returning to Imax and other premium large format screens this weekend, several days after and star/producer Ryan Gosling and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller showed up at CinemaCon to thank theater owners and announce that Amazon MGM is extending the film’s exclusive run in cinemas.
Produced by Jason Blum’s Blumhouse and James Wan’s Atomic Monster, The Mummy is Cronin’s an R-rated reimagining of Universal’s all-audience franchise. The film has divided critics, but audience exits are solid-to-decent. Also, the pic ended up sharing Imax screens with Hail Mary.
Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace and Veronica Falcón star in the pic, which Cronin wrote and directed. The story centers on a family who has been grieving the disappearance of their daughter eight years earlier in Cairo. Suddenly, they get a call from Egyptian officials revealing she has been found after spending the past eight years in a 3,000-year-old sarcophagus and has been transformed into a living mummy-like creature.
Cronin is celebrated for reviving the Evil Dead franchise with Evil Dead Rise, which grossed $147 million globally in 2023. He came on the scene with the 2019 feature The Hole in the Ground, which bowed at Sundance.
James Wan, Jason Blum and John Keville produced The Mummy alongside Cronin.
New openers at the specialty box office include the Anne Hathaway-led music industry drama Mother Mary from A24, and Morgan Neville’s Lorne Michael biopic Lorne.
Mother Mary, playing in only five locations, is eyeing a promising per-location average of $35,000-plus before expanding nationwide next weekend.
April 19, 7:45 a.m.: Update with revised figures.
This story was originally publised at April 19.
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