By Ben Miller

For the seventh straight week, a new film at the box office is the new number one.  There was little doubt The Super Mario Bros. Movie would dominate, but I don’t think anyone saw how much it would make.  The Nintendo/Illumination film make a whopping $166 million over the long Easter weekend.  That’s good for the third-best Easter weekend opening ever behind Furious 7 and Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.  Elsewhere, the numbers two, three, and four film were all real close with John Wick: Chapter 4, Ben Affleck’s Air, and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves around $15-16 million.  Those are some pretty solid numbers for counterprogramming to the kid-centric Mario.  (Big-budget, studio) Movies are back, baby!

Weekend Box Office (actuals) April 7th-10th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (Over 800 Screens)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE	HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE
1 🔺 THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE $166.4 (cum. $224.7) 4,343 screens	1 🔺 LA USURPADORA: THE MUSICAL $128k *NEW* 313 screens
2 JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 $16 (cum. $148.5) 3,855 screens	2 A GOOD PERSON $128k (cum. $2.1) 337 screens
3 🔺★ AIR $15.9 (cum. $21.7) 3,507 screens	3 HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE $115k *NEW* 12 screens
4 ★ DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES $15.4 (cum. $63.2) 3,856 screeens	4 MUMMIES $67k (cum. $4.2) 187 screens
5   SCREAM VI $3.8 (cum. $104.4) 2,286 screens	5 🔺★ SHOWING UP $66k *NEW* 4 screens
6 CREED III $3 (cum. $153.5) 2002 screens	6 🔺 RIDE ON $64k *NEW*  48 screens
A THOUSAND AND ONE	JOYLAND
7 HIS ONLY SON  $2.8 (cum. $10.6) 1930 screens	7 ★ THE LOST KING $59k (cum. $1.0) 265 screens
8 SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS  $1.7 (cum. $56.7) 2,203 screens	8 ★ RETURN TO SEOUL $39k (cum. $700k) 51 screens
9 ★ A THOUSAND AND ONE  $675k (cum. $3.0) 926 screens	9 ★ THE QUIET GIRL $32k (cum. $1.4)  69 screens
10 🔺 PAINT $570k *NEW* 819 screens	10 ENYS MEN $24k (cum. $165k) 52 screens
11 ★ 65 $503k  (cum. $31.5) 815 screens	11 🔺★ JOYLAND $20k *NEW* 1 screen
Only 11 films are currently in wide release	12 TORI AND LOKITA $13k (cum. $47k) 11 screens
	12 🔺★ NAM JUNE PAIK: MOON IS THE OLDEST TV $12k (cum. $54k) 5 screens

Things are a little more pessimistic on the limited/platform side.  With the top four films taking up over 3,500 screens a piece, that leaves little room for anything else.  The Sundance fave How to Blow Up a Pipeline faired well with almost $10k per screen, while Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up made almost $17k per screen in very limited release.  Pakistan’s 2022 Oscar submission Joyland finally debuted and made a whopping $20k on a single screen.

Next Weekend – We actually get a bunch of varying types of films next week, headlined by the Nick Cage/Nick Hoult horror comedy Renfield and Russell Crowe as The Pope’s Exorcist.  We also get a biopic of the first Black NBA player Nat Clifton called Sweetwater as well as the Toni Collette mafia comedy aptly titled Mafia Mamma.

What did you watch this week? I was all over the place in my watches.  I enjoyed plenty of disposable drivel (Mario, 80 for Brady, Happy Gilmore), but I also watched some pretty heavy stuff (On Golden Pond, Breaking the Waves, The Prince of Tides).  I might be going though some stuff.