Universal/Illumination’s “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” brought out loads of gamers to theaters on Wednesday night with a $34.5 million opening day from 3,821 locations, kicking off a box office run that, while likely not reaching the $1.36 billion global total of 2023’s “Super Mario Bros. Movie” will still be one of the highest of 2026.
From this start, “Super Mario Galaxy” would be on pace to earn a 5-day domestic opening of at least $175 million, consistent with pre-release tracking. The first “Mario” film opened to an Easter weekend record $204.6 million, and “Galaxy” could get closer to that mark with strong matinee turnout similar to that which gave “Mario Bros.” a $57 million opening Saturday.
Even if it doesn’t match that figure, “Mario” will become the fourth animated franchise with two films to earn a $100 million-plus Friday-Sunday opening weekend, joining DreamWorks’ “Shrek,” Illumination’s “Minions” and Disney’s “Frozen.”
It will also set a high bar for the blockbusters to come, including several films that Universal is attached to like Antoine Fuqua’s biopic “Michael,” which the studio is handling overseas distribution on, Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters” and Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.”
Just like the first “Mario,” this sequel is leaving critics unimpressed but giving fans the video game reference smorgasbord they want with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 42% critics and 91% audience at time of writing. The film also has an A- on CinemaScore compared to an A for “Super Mario Bros.”
With the boost from “Super Mario Galaxy,” the domestic box office will reach the $2 billion mark for the year by Monday at the latest. According to Comscore, first quarter totals for 2026 reached $1.77 billion, just edging 2023 for the highest total seen in the quarter since the COVID-19 pandemic but still 27% below the $2.41 billion total of the first quarter of 2019.
