It's-a me, box office domination!

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hit theaters last week and did exactly what everyone expected it to do - absolutely crushed it. The sequel to 2023's billion-dollar smash pulled in an estimated $130 million over the traditional three-day weekend and $190 million over its first five days. Globally? A cool $372 million. That makes it easily the biggest opening of 2026, blowing past Project Hail Mary's impressive $80 million debut from a few weeks ago.

Now here's the thing. Critics are once again falling all over themselves to trash a movie that audiences clearly love. The Rotten Tomatoes critics score sits at a pathetic 43%, while audiences gave it a 91%. Sound familiar? It's the exact same playbook as the first movie. Critics complained about the "thin script" and "underdeveloped arcs" - buddy, it's a Mario movie. Nobody's showing up for Oscar-caliber dialogue. They're showing up to see Yoshi and Rosalina on the big screen for the first time, and by all accounts, the movie delivers. It earned an A- CinemaScore, which tells you everything you need to know about how real people feel about it. IMAX and premium formats drove 44% of the domestic take, which means people wanted to see this thing on the biggest screen possible. Can't say I blame them.

Meanwhile, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson debuted The Drama to a solid $14.4 million in its opening weekend. For an original, adult-targeted dark comedy made on a $28 million budget, that's a perfectly respectable start. It's always nice to see something that isn't a sequel or a reboot actually find an audience.

Project Hail Mary continues its impressive run, having pulled in another $30.6 million last weekend for a domestic total north of $217 million and $420 million worldwide. That's now Amazon MGM's highest-grossing film ever. Ryan Gosling really can't miss, can he? The movie cost $200 million to make, and it's already well past the break-even point. Good for them.

Pixar's Hoppers is still hanging in there at over five weeks with $149 million domestic and north of $500 million worldwide. And Reminders of Him - the Colleen Hoover adaptation - is quietly doing solid business at $45 million domestic on a $25 million budget. Not every movie needs to be a blockbuster to be a win.

Speaking of Star Wars...

In what might be the most satisfying entertainment news of the year, Kathleen Kennedy has officially stepped down as president of Lucasfilm. I'll pause while you collect yourselves. Dave Filoni - who we hope actually understands and respects the source material - is taking over as president and chief creative officer alongside Lynwen Brennan as co-president. Kennedy will stick around as a producer on The Mandalorian and Grogu (hitting theaters May 22) and 2027's Star Wars: Starfighter, but the days of her running the show are over. After what she did to the sequel trilogy this is long overdue.

And speaking of franchise disasters, let's take a moment to pour one out for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, which has been officially cancelled by Paramount. The show's premiere peaked at roughly 1,300 concurrent viewers on YouTube and pulled a disastrous 8,000 likes to 27,000 dislikes ratio. The critics gave it an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes while audiences scored it at 43% - which should tell you everything about the state of professional criticism in 2026. Viewership collapsed to under 40,000 per episode, and it never once cracked the Nielsen Top 10 streaming charts. Nerdrotic famously ran a livestream of a plastic Spock action figure sitting in a chair that pulled triple the concurrent viewers of Paramount's official premiere. You can't make this stuff up.

Looking Ahead

April's got some interesting stuff on deck. Next week, The Mummy gets a horror-focused reimagining from Lee Cronin (the guy behind Evil Dead Rise) on April 17. He's promised it'll be "unlike any Mummy movie you ever laid eyeballs on" and is citing Poltergeist and Se7en as influences. Color me intrigued.

Then on April 24, the Michael Jackson biopic Michael arrives. The trailer broke records with 116 million views in its first 24 hours - more than any musical biopic trailer in history. Jaafar Jackson, MJ's actual nephew, stars in the lead role. Antoine Fuqua is directing, and the supporting cast includes Colman Domingo, Nia Long, and Miles Teller. This one could go either way, but that trailer interest is undeniable.

Looking beyond April, Supergirl drops June 26 with Milly Alcock starring, plus The Mandalorian and Grogu comes out on May 22.

Until next time - go see a movie.

We share all the best news and memes as they happen on social media, so be sure to follow us on YouTube, X, Instagram, and TikTok!