saidi’s take – 4/7/2026

Hello everyone,

BOX OFFICE: “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” blew past it’s estimated box office to make $131 million over the Easter weekend and $190.8 million since the movie opened last weekend.  That’s easily the biggest opening of 2026 so far and it almost became the #1 movie of 2026 domestically in just 5 days (“Project Hail Mary” retaining #1 by making $31 million over the 3 day weekend for a domestic total of $218 million).

Meanwhile the somewhat controversial movie “The Drama” came in at #3 with $14 million over 3 days (“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” made over twice that amount on its opening day Wednesday).

The total domestic box office made $100 million dollars more than the previous weekend (about 103% higher) making $197 million over 3 days.

WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” also took over at the foreign box office making $372 worldwide by Sunday.  Once again, it just missed being the biggest American movie of 2026 so far because “Project Hail Mary” worldwide gross is now $421 million (the biggest movie of 2026 so far is the Chinese movie “Pegasus 3” which is at $614 million – mostly from China.)  “The Suer Mario Galaxy Movie” made $182 million internationally in 3 days which is almost what it made domestically in 5 days.

OTHER NEWS:

• A campaign to get the Cinerama Dome and Arclight Theaters in Hollywood reopened has been put on pause after the LAPD halted an incident on Friday night.  The campaign has recently been questioning why the company decided to hold onto the Cinerama Dome and Arclight Hollywood theaters instead of selling them to another theater chain like almost all the other movie theaters Pacific/Arclight owned before the pandemic.  A commentary was projected on the front of the movie theater on Friday night (see photo below) until the LAPD informed the group that the owners considered it harassment.  Not wanting to get sued by the company, the grassroots campaign has been put on hold indefinitely according to the head of the group. 

• The Writers Guild surprised everyone by making a fairly quick agreement with the movie studios and streamers last week.  The current contract doesn’t expire until the end of May.  Don’t know how this will affect the upcoming negotiations with the Actors and Directors.

• It was recently announced that the return of actor Rick Moranis to the big screen will happen in approx. 1 year with the release of “Spaceballs 2” on April 23, 2027.  He took some time off from acting (except for some voiceover work and recording a couple funny CDs) to raise his children after his wife passed away but he has returned to acting with this movie and an upcoming sequel to the “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” movie he starred in.  Unfortunately, “Spaceballs 3” won’t have John Candy since he passed away a few years ago.

LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR: It’s still over 8 months away but advance tickets for “Dune 3” on IMAX 70mm screens went on sale today and almost instantly sold out.  They might be trying to get some advance publicity because it’s currently scheduled for release on the same day as “Avengers: Doomsday”.

That means a lot of work for Florence Pugh.  So far, I think she’s the only actress that will be in BOTH movies.