Super Mario Bros. and Return Of The Jedi give the weekend box office a chill ‘80s vibe
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. manages to defeat an old Star Wars
![Super Mario Bros. and Return Of The Jedi give the weekend box office a chill ‘80s vibe](https://img.pastemagazine.com/wp-content/avuploads/2023/04/14234341/fb36141ba4342451cab468a23dc2bcdf.jpg)
It’s been a totally tubular weekend at the U.S. box office, with a lot of neon colors and boomboxes and disastrous public policies enacted by the Reagan administration. That’s right: It’s the ‘80s again. Specifically 1983, when Star Wars: Episode VI—Return Of The Jedi and an arcade game called Mario Bros. (the predecessor to the NES’ Super Mario Bros.) were all the rage, plus cool kids everywhere were playing Dungeons & Dragons in their basements and Nike was signing Michael Jordan to a licensing deal that would effectively change the future of professional sports (though that happened slightly later). Also there’s an Evil Dead movie! Radical!
Yes, Return Of The Jedi jumped into the top five this week, some 2,000 weeks after it premiered, making a solid $4.6 million from fewer than 500 screens. Number one went to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, naturally, which made another $40 million this weekend and is just a hair short of $500 million domestic. Second place went to Evil Dead Rise again, making $12 million (it has $44 million after two weeks), and then newcomer Are There God? It’s Me, Margaret., a movie title that sure has a lot of punctuation in it. The adaptation of the iconic Judy Blume book (which, sadly, came out in the ‘70s) made $6.8 million.
Elsewhere on the charts, there were limited rollouts for Ponniyin Selvan: Part Two and Nazi-stabbing movie Sisu, but the wider release for—deep breath—Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story Of The Once And Future Heavyweight Champion Of The World failed to crack the top 10 by a few hundred thousand.
The full top 10 from Box Office Mojo, written out with no gnarly ‘80s references, is below.
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie
- Evil Dead Rise
- Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
- John Wick: Chapter 4
- Star Wars: Episode VI—Return Of The Jedi
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
- Air
- Ponniyin Selvan: Part Two
- The Covenant
- Sisu