FORECAST: Holy Mario

One year ago, Minecraft was going into its second weekend, another massively successful video game adaptation. Minecraft dropped 51.8% in its sophomore frame, from $162.7 million to $78 million.

Can we just stop for a second. Look at these numbers. Listen to the nonchalance with which I name them.

We all remember the ground crumbling beneath our feet in May 2002 when we first heard that Spider-Man opening weekend number on the radio. What did they say? It couldn’t have been $114 million. Movies don’t open over $100 million. That’s technically impossible.

The average movie ticket in 2026 is $16.08. In 2002, it was approximately $5.81. But we didn’t have IMAX back then. Just kidding. We did, but it was for 60-minute documentaries with titles like Mysteries of Everest, or… Big Old Egypt.

Now here we are at the 16th weekend of 2026, posting numbers that would have required hospitalization in any previous era of cinema. Let’s appreciate them, even though you might think to yourself, boy that sounds like cheating.

The first Mario fell 36.9% in its second weekend. Both Marios had 5-day opening weekends so the comparison is clean. Will Galaxy fall more? Probably. Here’s the thing about sequels to events. In 2023, we had never fathomed a Mario movie before. We’d had Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Prince of Persia, Sonic — and eventually Doom — and we thought we’d mapped the entire territory of what video game IP could do theatrically. But there was this glaring void. We never got a Mario. A big-budget family Mario. So it really felt like an event. Galaxy was always going to be enormous, but we had already gotten Mario. The kids wanted more, sure, but it wasn’t the resurrection of Christ or anything like that.

Given its weekday behavior, I’m predicting just below a 50% drop, and just below $70 million for its second lap.

For a side-by-side comparison, check out the Mario Showdown, which pits both Marios alongside Minecraft.

Project Hail Mary will drop a respectable 33% in its fourth frame, regaining some of the families it lost to Mario last weekend. That’s exactly in line with the fourth-weekend drops of Gravity and The Lego Movie. We don’t have a showdown for that yet because we’re just getting things up and running here, but this movie has a ton of weekends left in it. Don’t worry.

Part of me believes You, Me & Tuscany will overperform. It’s an antidote to The Drama’s diabolical look at love, offering something more wholesome. But with Reminders of Him still in theaters, it could very well bomb. Under the Tuscan Sun opened just below $10 million in 2003. Let’s give it that.

The Drama will drop roughly 47%, a little better than Materialists. Owen Gleiberman is all about it rewiring A24 or something. Not a bad drop.

Hoppers is doing fine. Hopping along just fine. It feels like it should be closer to $200 million by now, but you never know what’ll happen when you take your eyes off the box office for a week or two.

Finally, coming off a strong run in Japan, the new Neon release Exit 8 — based on the looping horror video game — could post an above-average per-screen average in limited. Theater counts haven’t been confirmed, so hard to say if that’s enough to crack the top ten.

Here’s the official Box Office Jedi prediction for this weekend: