The landscape in week 2 of *Super Mario Galaxy*’s release is similar to the first week of February: school is on half-term break in over 50% the country, the weather’s taken a turn for the worse early last week (typically good for the box-office) and theaters have a pretty decent line-up, between heavy-weights & more diverse fare, due to improve again with releases this week.
Total ticket sales this week ended up in a similar place to that first week of winter break, ie just under 3M, higher than the same week in 2025 & above average for post-2019 results in France overall. The dominance of one event release (*Mario* this time around, *Marsupilami* earlier in the year) is undeniable: other continuing releases held decently this week. I’ll come back to family films later, but local releases *Rays* & *Compostella* both had a steady WoW performance at the box-office (removing opening week preview admissions from the equation for the latter). It doesn’t make them break-outs but WOM & screenings in more markets this week are paying off, perhaps paving the way for the next two weeks. *Project Hail Mary* is heading towards a sub-1,5M performance, which is a noticeable discrepancy versus domestic in usually sci-fi friendly France.
**SMG**
*Mario* achieved another 1,3M admissions & given it’s per screen average, it shows no sign of slowing down in the next couple of weeks. The appeal is clearly there, though this week saw it dip under the trend of *SMBM* at this point. Ticket sales in the second week looks to be 15% lower than the first film in the series. That’s interesting since, in April 2023, the plumber had more serious competition from the four-quadrant friendly *Three Musketeers – Part I*. This time around, *Project Hail Mary* & *Hoppers* were already slowing down before the release. 2026 comedies contending with Mario’s latest adventure haven’t managed what the Musketeers did, including the already floundering *Unlucky Draw* & a few of this week’s new releases. In summary, there was a lot of room for *SMG* to outdo the first Mario Movie. That being said, the difference isn’t so steep & we’ll have to keep this in mind for the long haul.
Though they’re almost 2 & 3 months old respectively, *Hoppers* & *Marsupilami* have shown their enduring appeal by maintaining in the top 10 thanks to the typical school break bump for animated & family films. Pixar will probably cruise past the 1,5M threshold in the coming weeks, comfortably above industrial accidents like the releases of *Elio* & *Onwards* but still landing at 50% of *The Good Dinosaur* or *Cars* *3*, films that used to be the bottom of the barrel at the studio. Meanwhile, the Franco-Belgian marsupial won’t clear 6.2M barring a miracle – welcome news for a film that had to do well locally. Interesting factoid: *Walter Rabbit*, bombing in week 3 managed a stellar 66% WoW increase in admissions. I’ll leave you to decide if adding 7 000 admissions to a 66k total is anything to be happy about. All in all, these family films will probably continue performing on the low end and the real threat to Mario’s market share are upcoming releases.
**Cocorico 2**
Another sequel took the second place, though with a vertigo-inducing 1M fewer admissions. For French farce *Cocorico 2* this isn’t a bad result. This was an interesting test case of a quick turnaround for a local comedy. The original *Cocorico* released in mid-2024 to 310k admissions & really succeeded by going the distance and working well in a number of other European markets. If that small gap between instalments is a detriment, it’s not visible yet. Without pre-judging this films’ chances, it’s performing with the typical slightly diminishing returns of a sequel, but perfectly well. It also had a slow start to the week, which could be a reminder that this film’s audience is a bit harder to reach.
The big question is whether the film stands to lose any momentum from a universally negative online & critical consensus (just above 2 stars on Allociné at the moment). Perhaps not, given the first *Cocorico* provoked a similar, if not worse, response. Stars Didier Bourdon & especially Christian Clavier have embraced these broad & very un-PC comedic roles in their later career to massive success. If nothing else, *Cocorico 2*’s performance will let us know if brown-face/red-face & “corner-shop owner” accents still have a comfortable future in French farces in 2026.
All this is in the grand tradition of mediocre comedies with crotchedy, tells-it-like-it-is older characters we see all over Europe. Those often succeed in finding a large audience that isn’t represented by the consensus & doesn’t have the same criteria for a quality comedy as the mainstream (often among older & very young filmgoers). Clavier, well-known on the continent for the live-action *Asterix* & *Serial Bad Weddings* franchises among others, is one of the clown princes of this style. Though he claims to lampoon the mannerisms of both rich & poor, his execution has created a vocal anti-fandom that imo masks the opinion of his faithful audience (who are, pointedly, not among the demographics that typically use Allociné). Understanding this is capital to see why a film like this can work. It’s a very different beast from *Torrente Presidente* a similarly buffoonish sequel currently tearing-up the Spanish box-office, but which is tolerated if not beloved by a much larger section of the public.
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**It’s (still) Mario’s Galaxy & we’re just fine**
The landscape in week 2 of *Super Mario Galaxy*’s release is similar to the first week of February: school is on half-term break in over 50% the country, the weather’s taken a turn for the worse early last week (typically good for the box-office) and theaters have a pretty decent line-up, between heavy-weights & more diverse fare, due to improve again with releases this week.
Total ticket sales this week ended up in a similar place to that first week of winter break, ie just under 3M, higher than the same week in 2025 & above average for post-2019 results in France overall. The dominance of one event release (*Mario* this time around, *Marsupilami* earlier in the year) is undeniable: other continuing releases held decently this week. I’ll come back to family films later, but local releases *Rays* & *Compostella* both had a steady WoW performance at the box-office (removing opening week preview admissions from the equation for the latter). It doesn’t make them break-outs but WOM & screenings in more markets this week are paying off, perhaps paving the way for the next two weeks. *Project Hail Mary* is heading towards a sub-1,5M performance, which is a noticeable discrepancy versus domestic in usually sci-fi friendly France.
**SMG**
*Mario* achieved another 1,3M admissions & given it’s per screen average, it shows no sign of slowing down in the next couple of weeks. The appeal is clearly there, though this week saw it dip under the trend of *SMBM* at this point. Ticket sales in the second week looks to be 15% lower than the first film in the series. That’s interesting since, in April 2023, the plumber had more serious competition from the four-quadrant friendly *Three Musketeers – Part I*. This time around, *Project Hail Mary* & *Hoppers* were already slowing down before the release. 2026 comedies contending with Mario’s latest adventure haven’t managed what the Musketeers did, including the already floundering *Unlucky Draw* & a few of this week’s new releases. In summary, there was a lot of room for *SMG* to outdo the first Mario Movie. That being said, the difference isn’t so steep & we’ll have to keep this in mind for the long haul.
Though they’re almost 2 & 3 months old respectively, *Hoppers* & *Marsupilami* have shown their enduring appeal by maintaining in the top 10 thanks to the typical school break bump for animated & family films. Pixar will probably cruise past the 1,5M threshold in the coming weeks, comfortably above industrial accidents like the releases of *Elio* & *Onwards* but still landing at 50% of *The Good Dinosaur* or *Cars* *3*, films that used to be the bottom of the barrel at the studio. Meanwhile, the Franco-Belgian marsupial won’t clear 6.2M barring a miracle – welcome news for a film that had to do well locally. Interesting factoid: *Walter Rabbit*, bombing in week 3 managed a stellar 66% WoW increase in admissions. I’ll leave you to decide if adding 7 000 admissions to a 66k total is anything to be happy about. All in all, these family films will probably continue performing on the low end and the real threat to Mario’s market share are upcoming releases.
**Cocorico 2**
Another sequel took the second place, though with a vertigo-inducing 1M fewer admissions. For French farce *Cocorico 2* this isn’t a bad result. This was an interesting test case of a quick turnaround for a local comedy. The original *Cocorico* released in mid-2024 to 310k admissions & really succeeded by going the distance and working well in a number of other European markets. If that small gap between instalments is a detriment, it’s not visible yet. Without pre-judging this films’ chances, it’s performing with the typical slightly diminishing returns of a sequel, but perfectly well. It also had a slow start to the week, which could be a reminder that this film’s audience is a bit harder to reach.
The big question is whether the film stands to lose any momentum from a universally negative online & critical consensus (just above 2 stars on Allociné at the moment). Perhaps not, given the first *Cocorico* provoked a similar, if not worse, response. Stars Didier Bourdon & especially Christian Clavier have embraced these broad & very un-PC comedic roles in their later career to massive success. If nothing else, *Cocorico 2*’s performance will let us know if brown-face/red-face & “corner-shop owner” accents still have a comfortable future in French farces in 2026.
All this is in the grand tradition of mediocre comedies with crotchedy, tells-it-like-it-is older characters we see all over Europe. Those often succeed in finding a large audience that isn’t represented by the consensus & doesn’t have the same criteria for a quality comedy as the mainstream (often among older & very young filmgoers). Clavier, well-known on the continent for the live-action *Asterix* & *Serial Bad Weddings* franchises among others, is one of the clown princes of this style. Though he claims to lampoon the mannerisms of both rich & poor, his execution has created a vocal anti-fandom that imo masks the opinion of his faithful audience (who are, pointedly, not among the demographics that typically use Allociné). Understanding this is capital to see why a film like this can work. It’s a very different beast from *Torrente Presidente* a similarly buffoonish sequel currently tearing-up the Spanish box-office, but which is tolerated if not beloved by a much larger section of the public.