Talk about a Hail Mary pass.
Illumination and Universal’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie enjoyed a stellar second weekend in theaters, soaring past the $300 million mark domestically and $600 million worldwide.
The sequel is the first Hollywood pic of the year to accomplish either milestone after staying atop the domestic box office chart with $69 million, a decline of just 48 percent, for a North American tally of $308.1 million through Sunday. Overseas, it took in another $84 million from 88 markets for a foreign total of $321.1 million and global cume of $628.8 million, making it the top-grossing Hollywood title of the year to date, among other records.
Amazon MGM Studios’ Project Hail Mary, now in its fourth outing, also remained a force of nature as it celebrated crossing the $500 million mark in worldwide ticket sales. Based on Andy Weir’s best-selling novel about a humorous and humble high-school teacher who is unwittingly rocketed into outer space on a mission to save the sun. Along the way, he befriends a craggy-looking alien whom he nicknames “Rocky.”
In North America, the Ryan Gosling-led space adventures continued to hold in well, falling off 33 percent to $24.5 million for a domestic haul of $256.7 million. It took in another $30.6 million overseas for a foreign cume of $254 million and $510.6 million globally (sequel, anyone?). Amazon MGM’s head of film, Courtenay Valenti, and Amazon were widely scrutinized for agreeing to a $195 million production budget, but such talk ceased when Hail Mary became an overnight sensation.
By April 8, the two films had helped propel 2026 domestic box office revenue to $2.113 billion — a 23.5 percent spike over the same corridor in 2025 ($1.711 billion) and the best showing for the first part of the year since before COVID, according to Comscore. Ironically, revenue for the April 10-12 weekend was down year-over-year following a sustained winning streak that included five consecutive weekends of growth because of an especially tough comp — A Minecraft Movie — but 2026 still remains well ahead of last year by more than 23 percent.
Hollywood and theater owners continue to grapple with a new world order that has yet to see yearly domestic box office revenue come close to matching pre-pandemic levels and cross $11 billion, much less $10 billion. In 2019, for example, revenue had already cleared $2.619 billion by the same point in April, followed by $11.4 billion for the full year.
“I would like to point out, however, that making comparisons to 2019 and the pre-pandemic era needs to be taken with a grain of salt, given that the box office had to come back to zero,” says Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s chief box office analyst. “Obviously, there are challenges that face the industry, and paramount among them is having a robust slate of theatrical films released at a cadence and frequency that enables momentum to be maintained. Nonetheless, the industry heads into CinemaCon on a very positive note.”
CinemaCon, the annual gathering of theater operators, gets underway Monday in Las Vegas. Throughout the week, Hollywood studios will host elaborate presentations teasing their summer tentpoles and celebrate success stories such as Project Hail Mary, which couldn’t be a better calling card for Amazon MGM as it becomes a major Hollywood studio. If not, there would only be four majors left if Skydance chief David Ellison succeeds in buying Warner Bros. Discovery only months taking over Paramount. (The Paramount-Skydance team will make their CinemaCon debut Thursday.)
Other weekend highlights at the April 10-12 box office:
A24’s provocative film The Drama, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, also held up better than expected, dropping 21 percent to $8.6 million for an early domestic total of $31 million and more than $65 million globally. The film opened on the low end of projections a week ago, but strong word-of-mouth appears to be working its magic.
Universal’s You, Me & Tuscany, receiving an A- CinemaScore and boasting generally strong audience exits, came in fourth place with an estimated $8.1 million. It is the first studio rom-com featuring Black leads since 2012’s Think Like a Man; both pics were produced by Will Packer. Directed by Kat Coiro, the new movie stars Halle Bailey as a chef who secretly starts living in a vacant Italian villa and develops feelings for the cousin (Regé-Jean Page) of the residence’s owner.
Packer, whose numerous other credits include Girls Trip and Ride Along and other titles, recently told THR that the challenge for getting such features into theaters stems not only from the industry’s “very paltry record when it comes to films that highlight diverse leads,” but also that rom-coms have been deemed as a genre that can be relegated to Netflix streaming offerings or TV films on Lifetime.
Pixar and Disney’s Hoppers also celebrated a milestone in crossing the $350 million mark globally. In North America, it came in fifth with $4.1 million in its sixth weekend in yet another example of an original film working on the big screen (it’s also a key win for Pixar, which has struggled on the original front). The film, about a young girl who develops the technology to communicate with animals, has earned $157.1 million domestically and $197.3 million offshore for a global total of $354.4 million through Sunday.
Hoppers‘ latest records and achievements include: After six weekends, it is the third-top grossing release of 2026 globally, domestically and internationally; it now ranks as the highest-grossing domestic original animated release since Pixar’s Coco in 2017 ($210 million). Pixar has delivered the three top-grossing domestic original animated releases since 2017: Hoppers, Coco and Elemental.
Disney’s sprawling film empire, led by Alan Bergman, has played a major role in the box office recovery.
A special theatrical viewing of BTS World Tour ‘Arirang’ in Goyang grossed a solid $2.4 million during two Saturday showings in 1,189 locations across North America.
Among new specialty offerings, IFC’s Face of Death opened to $1.7 million from 1,600 theaters, while Neon’s Exit 8 took in $1.4 million from 495 locations.
This story was originally published April 11 at 12:30 p.m.
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