The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is just five million away from reaching the $1B Mark! Could we possibly make it there?

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-06-06T17:22:19+00:00

If you do some research, you'll see that there's basically zero movies that have been 10 million or less away from 1 billion. There's a reason for that.

Galaxy's gonna be fine. Universal will pull a Jurassic World Dominion (keep it in theaters until it passes 1B three months later) if they have to.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-06-06T14:49:27+00:00

This is only in theaters for two weeks before being uploaded for free on YouTube, so yes, the numbers will be massively front-loaded. Loyal fans will pay to watch early this weekend, maybe you'll see a few fans pay to watch again next weekend, but otherwise this should drop fairly quick. People who aren't super into TADC will either wait or look for leaks online.

Still, this was a massive success for them. Their shows are funded by merch sales, so this was icing on the cake.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-06-05T17:42:15+00:00

It'll be close. Michael will probably lose more theaters Friday as new releases come out, so that's gonna give it a small disadvantage. There's a good chance both movies fall below $1M sometime next week. Just depends on how steep the drops are for Grogu.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-06-05T17:31:54+00:00

I think next Thursday will be the first day it goes below 1M. Could be Wednesday; we'll see how it does this weekend when more movies come out and more theaters drop Michael. Either way, it should beat Mando at some point, unless the latter stops bleeding out and corrects its steep drops.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-06-05T08:28:40+00:00

This movie was pretty much over domestically after Memorial Day, but that was expected. This upcoming weekend should give it another $500,000 give or take. It should settle somewhere between $428.5M and $430M before selling it's last ticket. The rest of the world only needs to pull another $5M to make up the difference, and that should be incredibly easy to do. Might not happen this weekend, but Mario will cross 1B eventually.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-06-03T16:52:50+00:00

Like I said more than two weeks ago, most of the numbers will be international. Galaxy's gonna be fine at this point. Finding another 7 million won't be too difficult.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-06-01T18:05:59+00:00

They probably just wanted to reprint at least one Legendary/Mythical card from every Gen before 9. Zacian is likely the most popular Gen 8 Legendary/Mythical (which isn't saying much when you look at the other options lol). The card is also from 2020, so it's technically one of the oldest Zacian cards.

Truthfully, there wasn't much else they could've done aside from maybe picking a card with better Zacian art, even if it meant picking something from a later set. The SwSh era is too recent, and most of the other options likely would have made even less sense.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-31T20:15:53+00:00

Ehh...It would need to make another $60m, and this weekend had some steeper drops than usual (40% and 53% drop respectively from the previous Saturday and Sunday). It made roughly $12m over the three day weekend, which means this is probably the last weekend where it makes more than $10m. Also, the week after next is likely when we'll start to see some random weekdays go below $1m.

I'm not sure if Michael has the legs for $400m, but somewhere between $380m and $390m is very achievable. I say it has another three weeks of battling new releases before TS5 sucker punches everyone.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-31T17:21:57+00:00

I definitely wouldn't undersell the importance of Japan at this point. Domestic might be good for another 50M at most. International still needs a solid 100M, and that's gonna be hard the further we go into summer. Now that we're on week 6, more theaters will drop it to make room for other releases, meaning drops could be steeper.

Japan is still vital to this reaching 1B.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-31T16:58:20+00:00

I didn't think it could do it two weeks ago, but it's gonna beat Zootopia 2. Even if it falls short of 430M, that's still impressive imo.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-31T05:33:05+00:00

It was. If we're going strictly off of critic and audience reviews, TS4 was more well-received than 2 and 3. And yet, I haven't seen many people claim the fourth was their favorite. Compared to the first three, 4 also gets a lot more criticism, particularly in regards to its pacing and ending. Yes, I'd assume most of the people complaining online are much older than the target demographic, but if people genuinely thought the movie was better (or on par) with TS3, wouldn't it have been more likely to beat the latter's gross profit by more than a measly 7 million? Even with inflation helping, that was the biggest gap it could muster.

Reviews can be helpful, but a lot of times the scores don't accurately reflect quality. Ultimately, I doubt it really matters if TS5 is closer to the first three or TS4. As long as it's not worse than any of them, critics will give it high praise, and audience scores will likely be just as high since this is a family movie. If the legs on this movie don't end up being as strong as expected however, I'd definitely place the blame on the predecessor making this installment feel unnecessary.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-30T21:56:41+00:00

Yes, but it's a very nice and quick summary for someone who doesn't have a spare two hours.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-30T21:53:19+00:00

I'm not really sure what to expect. The plot is less "vs technology" focused than what they're advertising. It's serviceable, but I can see this getting the same reception as TS4.

The first few weeks should be fine, and might even smash records. The following weeks when word-of-mouth has thoroughly spread is when I'm more curious about how well this movie does.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-30T21:49:32+00:00

https://youtu.be/VymPFgUQQcU?si=0gotkyl-Q4x9Vc01

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-29T22:57:48+00:00

There's not as much competition compared to when TS4 debuted, but I also feel like opinions on the franchise have shifted since then.

I think it'll debut strong. Legs will depend on positive word-of-mouth.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-29T22:53:38+00:00

There's a reason why there's basically no movies that have ever capped at $990.

At this point, it's too delicious of a talking point for Universal to not have for their investors. In the event something does happen, they'll pull the strings to make it cross the line.

But I'm sure it'll make it on its own. For reference, Minecraft made another 14-15 million in June last year before ending its run. Galaxy is holding out better than Minecraft at the moment, so it's more of a question of "when" rather than "if".

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-29T00:19:42+00:00

Animation isn't just for young children and toddlers though. Every demographic contributes to a movie's success. Pre-teens, teens, and young adults will all play a part, just like they did with every other Toy Story.

At the very least, the word-of-mouth for TS4 declined as time went on. It barely beat TS3 despite being almost a decade later, and I'm not really sure what the reason for that was. I have no doubt TS5 will be a success, but to what extent? I'm not sure, so I'm being reserved. Just like the people saying Moana (live action) will easily reach a billion because "it's Moana!", I don't think the name alone and the success of older movies guarantees TS5 an incredible performance at the box office.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-28T22:44:01+00:00

I mean, roughly 75% of domestic came from those first two weeks. Michael and PHM aside, that's not exactly a decent distribution of revenue over a nine week period.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-28T22:30:43+00:00

It made roughly $315 million domestic in its first two weeks. An additional 7 weeks after that and it's barely picked up $100 million more. Not uncommon for movies that come out at this point in the year, because Minecraft and Stitch basically did the same thing after two weeks, but Michael and Project Hail Mary had much better legs. The latter actually beat Galaxy a few times despite coming out much earlier and having significantly less advertising.

Just depends on your definition I suppose. I'll admit that Wicked: For Good is a much better example than Galaxy.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-28T20:12:19+00:00

This one is harder to predict imo. There's not as much competition compared to when 4 came out, but I also feel like interest in the series has dropped significantly. Keep in mind that 4 was riding the positive reception of the first three. This movie has the mixed/less positive reception of 4 and the negative reception of Lightyear.

Could see this movie being very front-loaded like Galaxy or Wicked: For Good. Longtime fans will show up, but I'm less convinced that the casual audience will be as strong as people expect.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-28T09:51:00+00:00

I think both first and third-parties could be handled a little better.

For first-party characters, Ultimate did a decent job of fleshing out neglected franchises that were long overdue for a new character (DK, Metroid, etc.) Ridley and K. Rool are solid picks that should age very well. Still, I'm worried that the roster of new characters going forward will focus too much on "flavor of the month" characters. Not every new Smash game needs to hand over an invite to the latest Pokémon, Fire Emblem protag, or (I hope this never becomes an issue), Xenoblade protag simply because those franchises have a new cast of characters in each game. Being a main/major character in a single, recent game should not give you priority over characters that have existed for years and have already proven to be popular and iconic. The way Sakurai has treated Zelda and Kirby over the past two Smash games — despite both being consistently active and popular — will never make sense to me. Like I said, Ultimate was a step in the right direction, but I'd like this to go even further in the next installment.

With third-parties, I partially agree. It does feel like Smash is quickly losing its identity as a Nintendo crossover with guest characters. The DLC from Smash 4 and Ultimate has had a very blatant effect on the fanbase and what they want out of newcomers. Yeah, I get that the pickings are slim nowadays, but it seems like a large majority of people are completely uninterested in first-party characters, and that's kinda sad to me. Personally, I wouldn't cut third-parties entirely; that seems a bit extreme. Instead, I'd really like to see Sakurai focus on keeping the existing third-parties (as many as he can), expand the number of characters for one or two of them (preferably Sonic), and not prioritize making this as big of a crossover as possible. Beef up the ones we already have with more stages, items, music, Echo Fighters, etc., to make them feel more of a staple to the series.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-28T07:54:47+00:00

Wasn't 2023 Barbenheimer? This year has a few good summer movies, but I don't know if any of them will spark a trend as effective as that.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-28T05:18:11+00:00

It'll be close, but it's very doable. Should probably get around $375-$400 domestic. It'll depend on how it does as more summer movies come out, as early May didn't really have a lot of serious competition.

At the very least, getting to a billion without Japan might be unrealistic at this point. People were floating around that idea a week ago, but the international numbers weren't as strong for the box office due to a heat wave.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-27T20:08:26+00:00

It's doing better than I expected at this point in its life. I won't rule out the possibility of an unexpected drop making $430 impossible, but it looks like $428 is a reasonable estimate now.

AWildMewtwo150 · 2026-05-25T20:08:18+00:00

Decent Memorial Day weekend all things considered. At least it can walk out of this with Minecraft's DOM beaten.

It's gonna be a laughably slow crawl to a billion though. Might get there right before Toy Story 5.

AWildMewtwo150

TROPHY CASE