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