Star Chris Pratt achieves a rare box office record with the releases of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and The Super Mario Bros. Movie have provided star Chris Pratt with a rare box office record. Pratt stars as Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord) in the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, which is a sub-franchise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and premiered its third and seemingly final film in theaters this weekend. Last month, he debuted in another film from a huge multimedia franchise, providing the voice for the lead role of Mario in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which opened April 5.
Per Deadline, the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 box office will end the weekend with a gross of around $110 million, making the film No. 1 in the U.S. The film will knock The Super Mario Bros. Movie to No. 2 for the first time since that film’s premiere last month. This means that Pratt has starred in two consecutive No.1 movies at the box office, a rare feat for any actor.
What’s Going On With This Particular Box Office Record in 2023?
Although this feat is unusual for any actor, Pratt’s record is actually the second time this has happened in 2023. Ant-Man 3‘s Jonathan Majors accomplished this in March when Creed III (which stars Majors opposite director-star Michael B. Jordan) opened, taking the No. 1 slot from Ant-Man. There are likely a few reasons that these two records occurred so close together.
The first is the way that the pandemic complicated the movie release schedule. Many stars filmed movies shortly before or during the pandemic that didn’t see release until long after filming wrapped due to the chain of delays caused by pre-pandemic movies waiting for theaters to reopen before debuting. Although at first this led to a dearth of new wide-release movies, this year blockbusters are coming back in full force, though the staggered schedule means that sometimes projects that stars shot months or even years apart are now competing with one another.
Chris Pratt’s record was also likely due to the fact that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and The Super Mario Bros. Movie are presented in different mediums. As an animated feature, Mario‘s production schedule was entirely different from a live-action project, which likely led to a delay similar to the ones the pandemic already created. It’s also possible for actors to perform voice roles from anywhere, meaning he wouldn’t have had to take much time out of his Marvel schedule to play the role, allowing for more flexibility with release scheduling that probably led to this serendipitous situation.
Source: Deadline