The Super Mario Galaxy Movie & Project Hail Mary Rocket Easter Weekend Past Huge Box Office Record

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Project Hail Mary have sent the domestic box office into the stratosphere.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie release kicked off on Wednesday, allowing it to come barreling into the Easter holiday weekend with a full head of steam. The video game adaptation arrived at a time when the box office was being ruled by another space-set blockbuster, the Ryan Gosling sci-fi epic Project Hail Mary. That title is adapted from the novel of the same name by The Martian‘s Andy Weir, is already Amazon MGM Studios’ highest-grossing movie of all time, grossing more than $300 million worldwide and topping the domestic box office chart for two consecutive weekends and 12 consecutive days.

Per Deadline, as of Saturday morning, The Super Mario Galaxy movie is projected to end the 3-day traditional weekend with a cumulative domestic box office total of $129.4 million, bringing its cumulative 5-day total to $188.5 million. This sees it tracking slightly below the franchise’s debut installment, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which had a 3-day gross of $146.4 million and a 5-day of $204.6 million over Easter weekend in 2023.

While it is trailing behind Super Mario Bros., 2026’s Super Mario Galaxy Movie is setting quite a few major records this weekend. In addition to taking No. 1 at the domestic box office over Easter weekend, it has earned the second-biggest domestic debut both for Illumination and for an animated Universal movie (behind Super Mario Bros. on both counts) and the third-biggest domestic debut for a video game adaptation (behind Super Mario Bros. and A Minecraft Movie, which had a 3-day of $162.7 million).

Even though Galaxy can’t quite measure up, it is still on a path to become a major blockbuster. The 2023 movie was a record-shattering hit, earning $1.361 billion worldwide by the end of its run. If the new installment in the franchise follows its trajectory, it should easily become another billion-dollar success, earning back more than ten times its reported $110 million budget.

The Project Hail Mary release is expected to be knocked to No. 2 on the domestic chart behind The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, but its projected 3-day gross of $33.2 million (as of Friday night) sees it dropping an impressively narrow 39%.

during its third weekend. It previously dropped 32.8% during its sophomore weekend, tying with 2013’s Escape from Planet Earth for the 10th smallest week 2 drop for a sci-fi movie in history. This week 3 drop had the potential to be much larger, as the movie ceded its pricier IMAX and premium large format screens to Mario this weekend.

This total also pushes Project Hail Mary‘s cumulative domestic gross to $219.7 million, making it the first movie of 2026 to hit the $200 million domestic milestone. While Super Mario Galaxy is on a trajectory to surpass it before long, for the time being, the Ryan Gosling movie remains the highest-grossing domestic release of the year. It previously earned that title by surpassing the $153.9 million that 2025’s Avatar: Fire and Ash has earned since January 1, 2026.

Together, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Project Hail Mary are set to gross $162.6 million over the 3-day weekend. This combined total alone makes Easter weekend the highest-grossing weekend at the domestic box office. The previous record-holder was the weekend of March 20, when Hail Mary premiered. The entire Top 10 that weekend earned a cumulative $138 million.

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  Release Date

  April 1, 2026
  

  Runtime

  98 Minutes

  Director

  Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Pierre Leduc, Fabien Polack

  Writers

  Matthew Fogel

  Producers

  Chris Meledandri, Shigeru Miyamoto

  
  

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  Release Date

  March 15, 2026
  

  Runtime

  157 minutes

  Director

  Christopher Miller, Phil Lord

  Writers

  Drew Goddard, Andy Weir

  Producers

  Aditya Sood, Amy Pascal, Andy Weir, Christopher Miller, Phil Lord, Rachel O’Connor, Ryan Gosling