Game on: 'Mario Bros.' aim for $125M at holiday box office

After a couple of relatively solid weeks at the box office, the long weekend offers a chance for a pair of Super "Bros" to smash some competition.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (NASDAQ:CMCSA) -- a new animated take on the iconic Nintendo (OTCPK:NTDOY) characters -- pulled an uncommon Wednesday opening where its first-day grosses neared $32M.

That's nearly as much as last week's leader, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (NASDAQ:PARA) (NASDAQ:PARAA) managed for the whole weekend ($38.5M). It's also more than an earlier live-action incarnation, 1993's Super Mario Bros., managed in its entire film run ($20.9M), ERC's Jeff Bock pointed out.

And it sets the animated film on course to dominate theaters over the extended holiday. The new film is in 4,000 theaters and is on pace to reach $125M over the five days.

That would give it the best five-day gross in nearly a decade, according to Comscore data. That list of five-day runs is topped by 2009's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with $200.1M and $158M respectively. More recently, in 2013 Despicable Me 2 (also animated by Illumination Entertainment, as is the new Super Mario Bros. Movie) opened on a Wednesday and cleared $143.1M over a five-day span.

In any case, Mario Bros. is certain to easily surpass the holdover Dungeons & Dragons and John Wick: Chapter 4 (LGF.A) (LGF.B), as well as this week's Wednesday-opening competition: Air (AMZN), the biographical story of Nike's pursuit of Michael Jordan as a spokesman, opened to a respectable $3.1M on its first day, and may track toward $16M-$18M in five days to press D&D for second place.

Cinema tickers: AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC); Cineworld (OTCPK:CNNWQ); Cinemark (CNK); (IMAX); Marcus (MCS); Reading International (RDI); Cineplex (CGX:CA); National CineMedia (NCMI).