Making one last leap, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is projected to smash box office records. With the Nintendo and Illumination sequel arriving on Wednesday, April 1, experts have been providing their final predictions on how much they think the upcoming film will make in its domestic opener and beyond. Its predecessor, 2023’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, made an incredible $1.36 billion, $574 million domestically and $785 million internationally. That’s an extraordinarily high bar for this sequel to clear, but even if it doesn’t match those numbers, just getting close to them will make the film another surefire box office hit.
Super Mario Galaxy film predicted to smash opening weekend numbers
In its domestic opener, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is predicted to earn $150 million to $165 million over its 3-day weekend and $185 million to $200 million over its 5-day weekend (from April 1 to April 5).
These figures come from a March 27 report from BoxOffice Pro, which projects that this sequel will go over the first film’s $146 million 3-day domestic opener, though it will be slightly behind its $204 million 5-day domestic opener. They are also higher than what the site originally predicted for the film in early March, specifically $145M to $160M for the 3-day and $160M to $175M for the 5-day.
Even if the movie only manages to get numbers in the lower end of these ranges, it will easily surpass the box office record for a domestic opener in 2026, which at the time of writing goes to Ryan Gosling’s Project Hail Mary at $80.5 million. Given that the production budget of this sequel is projected to be around $100 million, the same as the original film, it will break even at $250 million likely within a matter of weeks.
To put the film’s projected $150 million to $165 million 3-day range into perspective, this domestic opening performance would be comparable to Spider-Man 3’s $151 million, Inside Out 2’s $154 million, and A Minecraft Movie’s $162 million. From the looks of it, the opening weekend numbers for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie likely won’t be beaten for the remainder of the year until perhaps Dune Part 3 and Avengers: Doomsday.
That said, this projection isn’t shared by other experts, particularly BoxOfficeTheory that believes the film is falling short of the original movie’s numbers. Its March 27 report has the film earning only $121 million ($101 million to $130 million) over the 3-day domestic opener and $170 million over the 5-day. It also forecasts that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will amass $455 million ($377 million to $485 million) over its entire domestic run in theaters, which is well below its predecessor’s $574 million domestic haul. The site remarked in prior posts that the movie doesn’t have the same hype as the 2023 blockbuster, which had novelty as a full-fledged animated adaptation of the popular video game franchise.
Still, most agree with the film’s more optimistic assessment. Earlier in the week, we reported that a Polymarket bet on the movie’s 5-day domestic opener has the majority believing it will go past the $180 million mark. Since then, the percentages haven’t changed much, with the results seeing 8% for lower than $160 million, 14% for $160M to $170M, 21% for $170M to $180M, 19% for $180M to $190M, and 16% for $190M to $200M. Meanwhile, 25% of betters, the highest percentage of the spread, think it will earn over $200 million.
In addition to the introduction of the popular character Yoshi, the sequel revealed that Fox McCloud from the Starfox video game franchise will make a surprise appearance too, putting us one step closer to a potential Super Smash Bros. Movie (we jest, but we can see it happening).
