Mario in Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary (Credits: Universal and Amazon/MGM)
In my last piece, I wrote that Hollywood was on its last legs. Right after that, 2026 had its first blockbusters hits: Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Project Hail Mary. This was the best start the theaters had seen since the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of these films (as I write this) are number one and two for this past weekend. Super Mario has accumulated a global total of $628.7 million, and Project Hail Mary has accumulated a global total of $510.6 million. It’s possible that both movies could continue to hold strong for the next couple of weeks. So, movie theaters are not dead yet while audiences come to see these two movies.
Why did these two movies succeed? For starters, they both pleased their audiences. Moviegoers gave Super Mario Galaxy Movie an A- Cinemascore rating and Project Hail Mary an A Cinemascore . I have watched both films, and you can count me as a satisfied audience member of both movies.
Yet what’s curious about these two movies is how different they are. Super Mario uses the model of sequels/franchises/Intellectual Property that has existed long before COVID-19, and is used very frequently after. Project Hail Mary, on the other hand, uses a model that is super rare in a post-COVID original movie.
Super Mario has a long tradition of fans such as myself. As a Gen-X kid, I grew up playing Super Mario Brothers and Donkey Kong. Curiously enough, unlike Pac-Man, Mario has managed to stay relevant for many generations. It’s interesting that a guy whose appearance is made to look like an ordinary man, and not a particularly strong or handsome one, would become the most popular video game character. The kid in me was touched when I went to watch Super Mario, but in the theater, I heard a child cry out when Yoshi, another video game character, came onto the screen. So, this movie had to play to many generations.
One problem with many franchises is either fatigue from too many sequels or the sense the filmmakers didn’t care about the project and were just trying to make a quick buck. This is not the case here. This is the second Mario picture, so fatigue hasn’t arrived. (Warning: The second Mario film made a little less than the first one did in its opening week, so the filmmakers would be wise not to beat this into the ground before fatigue comes.) The other reason is that the film understands the assignment and the audience who has come to see it. Including Yoshi played to the child in the theater. The kid in me was touched by moments of Mario coming to save the day in 2026 animation before it cuts to showing the old ’80s video game version I played as a kid.
Another important fact is that Mario and Yoshi aren’t the only interesting characters. Other characters appear, such as Bowser, Bowser Jr., Fox McCloud, Princess Peach, and Rosalina. Neither princess is your usual damsel in distress. They can take on the bad guys alongside Mario. At the end of the film, there was applause. Yes, this was a sequel that was definitely motivated by money, but it still knew it had to deliver to its core audience, and it succeeded.
Project Hail Mary was based on a bestseller by Andy Weir, who also wrote a novel called The Martian, which became a hit movie starring Matt Damon. The first interesting thing about this picture is that it’s the second time in this decade where a scientist is the protagonist and must use his scientific skills to solve an issue. The previous film was Oppenheimer.
Ryland Grace (played by Ryan Gosling), wakes up to find himself alone on a spaceship while everyone else is dead. As his memory returns, he realizes he was there (even though he has no astronautical experience) because a mysterious substance is killing the Earth’s sun. Grace comes across another spaceship and finds an alien that is five legs and has no face. He discovers that the alien is a lone astronaut such as himself, and his universe is in as much danger as Earth is. Grace calls the creature Rocky. Neither of them can survive in the other’s atmosphere, but yet, the two must learn to communicate and work together to help civilization from dying.
What’s remarkable about this film is that Gosling, for the most part, is alone and must keep the viewer’s attention, even though he doesn’t have anyone to talk to besides Rocky. Gosling’s presence is strong enough keep viewers’ interest. Likewise, there is the relationship between Grace and Rocky. Remember, Rocky has no face, five legs, and eventually communicates through a computer with broken English. Yet their relationship is as touching and believable as most human relationships currently displayed in films. While Project Hail Mary may have a lot of scientific jargon and great visual effects, the heart of this film is the relationship between Grace and Rocky.
It makes me happy that original stories can still succeed in the theater. While another of Andy Weir’s novels will be undoubtedly adapted into a film, it’s hard to see what the future holds for original films. For one, Project Hail Mary looks great on the big screen. Yet there will be many original films that don’t need a big-screen enhancement, which will make it difficult for original films to play in the theaters.
Also, I was at my uncle’s ninetieth birthday party this past weekend, and I spoke to a few relatives who had heard good things about the film. However, despite how good the film looked on the big screen, they opted to wait for streaming. That message indicates to me that the theaters will never fully return the way they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. No matter how good a film is, a significant number of audiences will wait to stream rather than go to the theaters.
Overall, while theater owners have a very good reason to be happy so far in 2026, a lot of uncertainty remains. We don’t know what other films will break through to filmgoers. As we’ve seen in the past, a good original film doesn’t always succeed, nor does a franchise if it isn’t a good entry or has been done too many times. Despite a promising start, the film industry still has a long way to go.
