“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has become the first film of the year to reach $1 billion milestone at the global box office.
The animated movie, produced by Universal, Illumination, and Nintendo, has grossed $490 million in North America and $532 million internationally after just 26 days of its release. It’s a remarkable achievement as it has become only the fifth movie during the pandemic era to attain such a feat, after “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Jurassic World Dominion,” and “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic direct the movie, which follows the story of Mario (Chris Pratt) as he is transported to the Mushroom Kingdom. There, he teams up with Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) and Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) to rescue his brother Luigi (Charlie Day) and save the kingdom and its inhabitants from the oppressive rule of Bowser (Jack Black).
Despite criticism from some film critics about the movie’s writing, pacing, and use of licensed music, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has proved to be a huge success with families and Nintendo fans packing theaters. The film’s success may prompt Hollywood executives to pursue more video game adaptations in the future, especially if upcoming superhero films, like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, fail to perform as well at the box office.
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“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” made its debut on April 5 and made a massive $204 million in just the first five days of release. This impressive opening weekend earnings have marked it as the biggest opening weekend of the year and the second-biggest opening for an animated movie in history.
Since then, the film has gone on to break records as the highest-grossing movie of 2023, both domestically and globally, and the highest-grossing film ever made based on a video game. These records are particularly notable given the disastrous reception to the last Mario movie, 1993’s live-action “Super Mario Bros,” which is often cited as an example of Hollywood’s failure to adapt video games into films.
