MONDAY AM UPDATE: Good news for Universal and Warner Bros on this first day of CinemaCon: Their movies came in higher at the box office. Illumination/Universal/Nintendo’s The Super Mario Bros Movie now counts a third weekend of $59.9 million, still the highest third weekend ever for an animated movie but also the best third weekend ever for a Universal title, the last being 2015’s Jurassic World with $54.4M.

The best third weekend previously for an Illumination animated movie was 2018’s The Grinch at $30.3M. Super Mario Bros gets a lift off of a better-than-expected Sunday of $19.65M, -25% from its $26M Saturday. Its running total in the U.S. and Canada is $436M.

New Line’s Evil Dead Rise did $6M Sunday instead of $4.9M, which puts the start of the latest installment of the horror series at $24.5M. That’s not far from the pre-pandemic opening of The Curse of La Llorona from New Line in the same third weekend in April 2019, which did $26.3M off a B- CinemaScore and finaled at $54.7M.

Key drivers in the “spooky mom: campaign led by Warner Bros marketing boss Josh Goldstine were the red- and green-band trailers that dropped January 3 and also trailered on that month’s hit horror pic M3GAN. Of course, grabbing all the genre fans’ attention with that SXSW premiere goes a long way and fired up great reviews. New Line screened the movie across horror fan fests such as HorrorFind (Cincinnati), Overlook (New Orleans), C2E2 (in which the infamous cheese grater made an appearance), MegaCon Orlando, BeyondFest (Los Angeles) and more. Stunted screenings including “Deadite” scares with Telemundo’s Hoy Dia and Buzzfeed’s Pero Like, were key in driving this pic’s leading demo of Hispanic and Latino moviegoers to a huge 35% (vs. Caucasians who turned up at 32%). There were also clip debuts on Latinos Against Spooky Shit and targeted content across Being Latino including Being Latino “Vecina” Meme, “Attack”, and “Cruda.”

WRITETHRU SUNDAY AM UPDATE after Saturday AM update: Illumination/Universal’s The Super Mario Bros Movie stayed on course with its third weekend estimate notching an $58.2M, which is the best third weekend for an animated movie ever, beating the $46.4M earned by Pixar/Disney’s The Incredibles 2 during June 29-July 1, 2018 which was a pre-Independence Day weekend.

RELATED: ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Photo Gallery

As we told you, the Nintendo pic crossed the $400 million mark stateside yesterday in its 18th day, the second-fastest animated pic to that point after The Incredibles 2, which hit the four-century mark in 15 days. By EOD Super Mario Bros Movie will be the third highest-grossing Universal title of all time at the domestic box office with $434.3M, behind 2015’s Jurassic World ($653.4M) and the lifetime total of 1982’s E.T. The Extraterrestrial ($437.1M).

Some distribution sources thought Super Mario would take a slightly harder hit due to softer midweek numbers as kids returned to school after spring break. That’s so not the case.

Evil Dead Rise per Warner Bros this morning did $10.3M Friday, another $8.2M yesterday, -21%, for a fantastic $23.5M. That’s up there with recent pandemic genre hit starts, i.e. Cocaine Bear ($23.3M), Smile ($22.6M) and The Black Phone ($23.6M). That’s fantastic, and I’m hearing the negative pick-up cost for the film was $19M. Even if the movie goes down tonight, and the three-day total winds up to be $20M (which right now is not expected), CinemaCon will still be patting the Burbank, CA studio on the back after pivoting this intended HBO Max title to the big screen. Bravo, Warner Bros. CinemaScore is a B — higher than the C+ which the 2013 Evil Dead remake did. PostTrak is at 3 stars, 71% positive and 57% recommend.

“The filmmakers made a scary movie and the Warner Bros marketing team nailed it with evil moms,” beamed the studio’s domestic distribution boss Jeff Goldstein this AM.

RELATED: ‘Evil Dead Rise’ Review: Deadites Cause High-Rise Havoc In Lee Cronin’s Horror Venture

On these horror movies, you have to find a hook, and something that resonates and that’s creepy — the masked guy in The Black Phone or wicked smiling people in Smile. Here it’s the evil mom. And that trailer where she’s trapped in the elevator, which was put out on social, I’ve never seen anything like that.

The R-rated franchise title pulled in 58% guys, 66% between 18-34, with the largest demo being 25-34 at 36%. Strong Latino and Hispanic turnout which is standard for horror movies at 35%, with Caucasians at 33%, 16% Black, and 16% Asian/other. The West, but also hearing the South, were the strongest for the movie executive produced by Sam Raimi, with Burbank AMC the best of the bunch with $50,000 so far. PLF screens are driving 16% of Evil Dead Rise’s Friday gross.

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant from MGM via STX landed an A CinemaScore for what’s was a $2.2M Friday and $6.28M three-day total in third place. PostTrak audiences also liked the Jake Gyllenhaal title at 92% positive, 77% recommend. Guys at 60% showed up, 45% between 18-34 years old, with the largest quad being 25-34 years old at 27%. The mix was 44% Caucasian, 30% Hispanic and Latino, 10% Black and 15% Asian/other. The movie excelled where it was expected: South Central, but also the West was solid with AMC Ontario Mills close to $8K.

RELATED: Jake Gyllenhaal And His ‘Covenant’ Co-Star Dar Salim Talk About Their New War Action Movie, Guy Ritchie’s Directing Style And What They Learned From Real Life Heroes That Inspired These Roles

All films this weekend are eyeing $123.6M, +32% from a year ago. It’s also +13% from 2019 ($109.1M), which was Easter weekend, when New Line opened The Curse of La Llorona, to $26.3M.

While we know tentpoles can thrive in the post-pandemic marketplace, how are arthouse titles doing? Still wobbly, and again, it boils down to product, and whether that appeals or excites audience. Auteur Ari Aster, who created a fervent following in his genre movies Hereditary and Midsommar, has a more dramatic title in the 3-hour Beau Is Afraid. While its rhymes with the tone of his previous movies, it’s solely about a man’s pain, the deconstruction and redemption of it. If you’re an Aster fan, you’ll likely love it, but for mom and dad, and your older sister, it’s a movie that divides — evident in its 68% Rotten Tomatoes critics score and 71% fresh from audiences.

RELATED: ‘Beau Is Afraid’ Bets On 900 Screens; Martin Scorsese Calls Ari Aster “Extraordinary” Voice In Cinema – Specialty Preview  

The movie’s expansion by A24 from four NYC and LA theaters to 965 was all right for a movie of that size, landed a $2.7M second weekend per the distributor or $2,8K per theater. That’s slightly better than the expansion of Searchlight’s The Banshees of Inisherin back in the fall from 58 theaters to 895, the pic at that latter threshold pulling in $2M (after its Oscar momentum, Banshees ended its run at $10.5M). Hence, there’s some hope there at the arthouse. However, if you drill down into Beau‘s numbers, we hear there’s a core group of theaters that are driving the action, but the wider one gets down the list, the grosses peter out. Hopeful is the key word here.

There’s some headlines out there that Beau Is Afraid will lose money off its $35M production cost. But so are a number of other auteur driven pics during the pandemic — and even those before that. That just comes with the territory when you’re doing business with an artist, and a distributor has to hope they have something else on the calendar to offset the losses. Who do auteurs make movies for? Not necessarily the greater AMC moviegoing audience. Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, at a cost of $40M before P&A, and a global box office just north of $33M, also lost money — but it brought a pulse to arthouses during a downbeat time. Furthermore, you’d be surprised what actually makes money after all the waterfalls. I’ve heard through multiple sources that Focus Features’ Robert Eggers’ viking epic The Northman from last April, which was co-financed with New Regency at $70M, cleaned up on PVOD in the new Universal 17-day theatrical window/Peacock-Amazon Prime downstream model after only making $69.6M WW. I’m told it was only a few single digits millions lost. BTW at $35M, Beau Is Afraid carries a production cost that’s on par with the multi-Oscar winning hit Everything Everywhere All at Once — which netted a $32M profit.

Searchlight’s Chevalier, despite having better reviews at 82% certified fresh and Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 96%, isn’t wowing with a $1.5M start as of Sunday morning in the No. 11 spot from 1,275 theaters. Part of the problem might be is that the pic looks like Bridgerton in its period execution, and well, fans of that aren’t venturing out en masse to see it. However, there are some as the pic’s core audience were 58% women, 51% over 45, with the over-55 set showing up at 34%. Diversity demos were 41% Caucasian, 38% Black, 8% Latino and Hispanic and 13% Asian/other. Halfway decent runs I hear in NYC, L.A., Houston and Austin, but soft ticket sales across the board.

RELATED: ‘Chevalier’ Review: Kelvin Harrison Jr Holds Court As A Violin Virtuoso

Sunday reported studio numbers below. Jill Goldsmith will have arthouse highlights.

1) Super Mario Bros Movie (Uni) 4,350 theaters (-21), Fri $14M (-38%), Sat $25.9M Sun $18.1M 3-day $58.2M (-37%), Total $434.3M/Wk 3

2) Evil Dead Rise (NL) 3,402 theaters Fri $10.3M, Sat $8.2M Sun $4.9M 3-day $23.5M/Wk 1

3) Guy Ritchie’s Covenant (MGM) 2,611 theaters Fri $2.2M, Sat $2.3M Sun $1.65M 3-day $6.28M/Wk 1

4) John Wick: Chapter 4 (LG) 2,685 (-348) theaters Fri $1.57M (-25%), 3-day $5.75M (-29%), Total $168.8M/Wk 5

5) Air (AMZ) 2,823 theaters (-684) Fri $1.47M (-32%) Sat $2.4M Sun $1.68M 3-day $5.5M (-39%), Total $41.3M/Wk 3

6) Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Par) 2,960 (-364) theaters, Fri $1.39M (-29%), Sat $2.4M Sun $1.61M 3-day $5.4M (-30%), Total $82.1M/Wk 4
How is this eOne co-production doing? Again, the hope was that D&D would be the start of another franchise. As we told, it was just another niche cult franchise that got a big polish ala Lionsgate’s Power Rangers in spring 2017, which opened solid at $40.3M off a $100M production, but collapsed thereafter. Right now, D&D is pacing 2% ahead of Power Rangers in its fourth weekend, that latter title finaling at $85.3M. At that level, Power Ranges didn’t spur an immediate feature sequel.

7) Pope’s Exorcist (Sony) 3,178 theaters, Fri $1M (-71%) Sat $1.39M Sun $925K 3-day $3.3M (-63%)/Total $14.9M/Wk 2

8) Renfield (Uni) 3,378 (+3) theaters, Fri $910K (-68%), Sat $1.37M, Sun $820K 3-day $3.1M (-61%), Total $13.6M/Wk 2

9) Beau Is Afraid (A24) 965 (+961)theaters, Fri $1.13M (+701%), Sat $898K Sun $678K 3-day $2.7M (+744%), PTA $2,8K Total $3.1M/Wk 2

10) Suzume (Sony/Crunch) Fri $450K (-79%), Sat $670K Sun $505K 3-day $1.62M (-68%), Total $8.4M/Wk 2

11) Chevalier (Sea) 1,275 theaters, Fri $540K, Sat $570K Sun $390K 3-day $1.5M,/Wk 1

UPDATE FRIDAY MIDDAY: Illumination/Universal’s The Super Mario Bros Movie, of course, remains a huge reason to go to the movies in its third sesh, which is looking at $13.5M today (-40% from a week ago), and a third weekend of $56M at 4,350 theaters, -39%, sending the Nintendo movie to $432.1M by Sunday. Big theater average over $12K here.

And despite two horror movies going at it last weekend, Universal’s Renfield and Screen Gems’ The Pope’s Exorcist, which both filed in the high single digits, the arrival of a third this weekend is proving reason for horror fans to go out as they’re spending $9M+ today (including Thursday night’s $2.5M previews) and between $18M-$22M over three days for the Sam Raimi-executive produced Evil Dead Rise. Rivals see the pic’s three-day higher, but like all horror films, it comes down to Saturday night as business typically is frontloaded for such fare.

Social Media experts RelishMix report that Evil Dead Rise has a social media universe across Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube of 191.5M, comping to Halloween, which was 189M ($76.2M opening in 2018), The Black Phone at 135M ($23.6M, 2021) and Halloween Ends at 136M ($40M opening last year). The hottest metrics are on YouTube, with a huge viral reposting rate of 48:1 off five videos with 98.2M views.

RELATED: ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Photo Gallery

Says RelishMix: “Convo is woven with positive anticipation for the film as fans trust the Evil Dead franchise and believe the 2023 remake will be a high-quality horror film since the franchise is regarded as the ‘only horror franchise without a bad movie.’ The trailer is praised for its creepy and terrifying imagery, teasing the potential twists and jump scares. Many consider ‘Mommy’s with the maggots now’ to be an iconic horror movie line, and references to other horror comps like The Shining are also appreciated by viewers — plus appreciation for the expansion of the franchise, ‘I still own the special 6.1 edition of the original. This looks fantastic.’”

The rest of the chart looks like this:

3) Guy Ritchie’s Covenant (MGM) 2,611 theaters Fri $2.1M, 3-day $5.7M/Wk 1

4) John Wick: Chapter 4 (LG) 2,685 theaters Fri $1.4M (-33%), 3-day $5.3M (-34%), Total $168.4M/Wk 5

5.) Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Par) 2,960 theaters, Fri $1.35M (-31%), 3-day $5.2M (-30%), Total $82M/Wk 4

6) Air (AMZ) 2,823 theaters Fri $1.4M, 3-day $5.1M (-35%), Total $41.4M/Wk 3

RELATED: ‘Beau Is Afraid’ Bets On 900 Screens; Martin Scorsese Calls Ari Aster “Extraordinary” Voice In Cinema – Specialty Preview  

Notables:

Renfield (Uni) 3,378 theaters, Fri $1M (-68%), 3-day $3.4M (-58%), Total $13.9M/Wk 2

Beau Is Afraid (A24) 926 theaters, Fri $1.3M (+822%), 3-day $3.3M (+931%), PTA $3,5K Total $3.8M/Wk 2

Chevalier (Sea) 1,275 theaters, Fri $440K, $902 PTA, 3-day $1.15M,/Wk 1

FRIDAY AM: New Line and Warner Bros’ Evil Dead Rise freaked out $2.5M last night from previews that began at 7PM at 3,000 locations.

The R-rated horror movie from Irish director Lee Cronin and executive produced by Sam Raimi is eyeing a start between $15M-$20M+ as Illumination/Universal’s The Super Mario Bros Movie (read the reivew) swats any newcomers away from No. 1 with $46M-$55M. It’ll take the Guardians of the Galaxy gang with their threequel to do that on May 5. Super Mario Bros easily won Thursday with $4.9M, +2% from Wednesday for a second week of $115.3M for a running total of $376.1M.

RELATED: Bruce Campbell Clashes With Heckler During ‘Evil Dead Rise’ SXSW Premiere 

The 2013 Evil Dead remake from Fede Alvarez earned $1.9M in 10 p.m. Thursday previews before charting an $11.9M Friday and $25.8M opening. Exhibition is confident that this latest installment of the Raimi-created franchise can deliver after great reviews out of its SXSW, now at 88% certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and 86% on its audience meter.

RELATED: Jack Black Wants Pedro Pascal As Wario In ‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Sequel

Here’s how Evil Dead Rise stacks up to recent notable R-rated horror previews post-pandemic: Blumhouse/Universal’s Black Phone did $3M, and Paramount’s Smile grossed $2M before respective opening weekends of $23.6M and $22.6M. Genre comedy Cocaine Bear also saw $2M in previews before a $23M domestic start.

Other movies opening this weekend include Searchlight’s Chevalier, which will do in the single digits at 1,275 theaters (read the reivew). The period drama is 82% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. A24’s Beau Is Afraid is jumping from four theaters in NYC and LA to 926 (read the reivew). MGM has Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant at 2,611 theaters and is spotting around $6M (read the reivew). The Jake Gyllenhaal pic is 82% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

RELATED: Why The Animated ‘Super Mario Bros’ Shattered Box Office Records & The 1993 Pic Failed