Calling it "a box office Koopa d'etat", 'Variety' reports that the 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' continues to super smash its opening projections, drawing $55 million from 4,343 theatres in North America on Friday.

Released on Wednesday (U.S. Time), the film has already earned $137 million in domestic ticket sales. "If every dollar were a coin, that would amount to 1.37 million 1-Up mushrooms. That's a lot of extra lives," 'Variety' noted.

The Universal and Illumination film is still on track for a $195-million opening in North America over the five-day Easter weekend frame. That's way ahead of the $150 million projections that were being reported at the start of the week.

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'The Super Mario BrosIANS

Even more impressively, 'Super Mario Bros.' now looks to leap to a $368-million global debut. That would be the biggest-ever opening for an animated film, though, to set the record straight, the current record holder -- 2019's 'Frozen II' -- earned $358 million over a traditional three-day window.

'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' features a voice cast that includes Chris Pratt as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach and Jack Black as Bowser. Unlike, however, the hit Nintendo video game series that it's based on, the film hasn't earned glowing reviews, drawing a 44 per cent rating from top critics on aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, notes 'Variety'.

The animated adventure, though, has landed well with super fans of the video games as well as family audiences, who, says 'Variety', have been starved of a wide release targeted at them since the debut of 'Puss in Boots: The Last Wish' over the holidays, more than three months ago.

(With inputs from IANS)

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