‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Crosses $1 Billion at the Global Box Office
Mamma Mia! Nintendo and Illumination Entertainment’s collaborative effort The Super Mario Bros. Movie has managed to cross the famed $1B milestone after its fourth weekend, making it the first video game movie to ever do so.
Right before Super Mario pressed start, tracking agencies expected a hit; the initial estimate was for a domestic opening of $85M-$90M based on early tracking, with a worldwide opening weekend somewhere in the $195M to $200M range. Some worried that, with so-so at best reviews, the momentum building for the Mushroom Kingdom adventure would stall – but the numbers mushroomed over the five-day period to a mighty $204M+ domestic and $377M+ worldwide total. Any fear of the movie being front-loaded was dispelled on the second and third weekends, which brought in some super $92M+ and $59M+ domestic totals respectively, causing the worldwide hauls to rise to $693M+ and then $871M+.
The latest box office report, courtesy of Deadline, has stated that The Super Mario Bros. Movie has now joined the billion-dollar club with a worldwide total of $1.022B+, which might still rise as final totals for the weekend will come in tomorrow. Making another $40M+ this weekend positioned it as the biggest fourth-weekend gross of any Universal film ever, and even getting ahead of huge, films like Spider-Man: No Way Home ($32M+ on weekend 4). The running total in the United States and Canada accounts for just under half of that at $490M+, making it Universal’s second-highest-grossing release in the domestic markets behind the $652M+ domestic total of the first Jurassic World.
Aside from a continued strong performance in its existing markets, what got The Super Mario Bros. Movie over the finish line was its opening in South Korea (where it did well with $5M+ after an initially sluggish start) and Japan, where it made a blockbuster $14M+ (the best post-COVID-19-era opening there for a foreign film since Top Gun: Maverick). For whatever reason, Japan and South Korea were one of the last places that this film opened up in, despite Nintendo being a Japanese company and having a sizeable presence in the South Korean market. Other major markets feeling the Super Mario mania include Mexico at $73M+, the UK at $56M+, Germany at $43M+, France at $40M+, Australia $31M+, Spain at $22M+, China at $21M+, Brazil at $20M+, and Italy at $19M+.
With plenty of gas left in the kart tank, The Super Mario Bros. Movie will easily become the highest-grossing non-Disney, non-Pixar animated film, taking that title from fellow Universal Pictures release Minions (which made $1.159B+) and likely giving Disney and Pixar’s biggest hits a run for their money when all is said and done. At the domestic box office, the film is only behind the Incredibles 2, which made $608M in the United States and Canada – a record that it has a shot at catching because and it’s opted to trade that movie’s stellar Summer weekdays for huge Spring weekend. At the global box office, it will leap over the likes of Zootopia, Finding Dory, Despicable Me 3, Toy Story 3, and Toy Story 4 in the next week, putting it at the just outside of the Top 5 for all-time highest grossing animated films (a list that includes Minions, The Incredibles 2, Frozen, Frozen 2, and the 2019 remake of The Lion King).
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is currently playing in theaters.
Grant Davis is a freelance writer who has covered entertainment news for more than seven years. His articles have frequently appeared in Star Wars News Net as well as as other entertainment-related websites. As someone who grew up on Star Wars and comic book movies, he’s completely thrilled with the current era of genre entertainment.
