The Super Mario Bros. Movie Is Now the Third-Biggest Animated Film Ever at Global Box Office

‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Is Now the Third-Biggest Animated Film Ever at Global Box Office

‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Is Now the Third-Biggest Animated Film Ever at Global Box Office

It trails only the two 'Frozen' movies.

BY RAHUL MALHOTRA

PUBLISHED 1 DAY AGO

Even though it’s out on VOD, Universal’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie is continuing to break box office records. This weekend, the mega-hit video game adaptation added around $10 million at the domestic box office, finishing third behind new release Fast X and holdover hit Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. And after a month-and-a-half in theaters, Super Mario is passing major milestones domestically and globally. The film has made around $550 million stateside, and just under $700 million from overseas territories, for a running worldwide total of $1.248 billion, per The Hollywood Reporter.

This means that Super Mario has overtaken Incredibles 2’s $1.243 billion global haul to become the third-biggest animated movie of all time at the global box office. Super Mario is now only trailing the two Frozen movies. Released in 2013, the first Frozen made $1.284 billion worldwide — a figure that Super Mario could realistically overtake. And six years later, Frozen 2 finished its worldwide run with $1.45 billion.

Along the way, Super Mario shot past iconic animated hits such as Toy Story 3 ($1.068 billion), the original The Lion King ($986 million), and Finding Nemo ($936 million), as well as every Shrek and Ice Age movie, not to mention every Despicable Me and Pixar title. Super Mario is also the biggest film in Illumination Entertainment’s catalog, joining Minions ($1.157 billion) and Despicable Me 3 ($1.032 billion) in the animation studio’s billion-dollar club. Illumination has also released two other movies that have grossed more than $900 million globally — Despicable Me 2 ($975 million) and Minions: The Rise of Gru ($939 million).

Super Mario has been breaking box office records ever since it debuted in the first week of April. It was supposed to gross around $130 million in its five-day extended weekend, but ended up making $204 million. Super Mario dominated the box office for the entire month, before being dethroned by Guardians of the Galaxy 3 in May. The movie worked despite so-so reviews because it served not just the young children who hadn’t had a film targeted at them since December’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, but also their nostalgia-hungry parents, who probably grew up with these characters.

Super Mario's Success Is a Win For Video Game Movies, and Chris Pratt

Super Mario, of course, is based on the popular video game franchise that was previously adapted into a doomed live-action movie starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo in 1993. The success of the animated movie can also be counted as a much-needed win for video game adaptations in general. The audience has famously had a hot-and-cold relationship with these movies, but everybody seems to be pleased with how Super Mario turned out. The film’s $1.24 billion worldwide gross is essentially three times what the previous top-grossing video game adaptation — Warcraft — ended its run with.

It’s also another win for star Chris Pratt, who voices everybody's favorite plumber. Pratt has led popular franchises such as Jurassic World, Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Lego Movie in the past. He’s joined by Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, Jack Black and Fred Armisen in the film's cast. You can watch our interview with Pratt and Day here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

This is very disheartening, I hate Jack Black.

Disgusting

You don't hate Chris Pratt?

He's my fav Italian.

Chris Pratt's Christian. Dude's okay.

Very good. I’m just patiently waiting for it to hit blu-ray myself. Hoping to see other Nintendo IP’s get the movie treatment in the future.

Should hope so too. There's more children than ever in the world and they'll watch literally anything.

@uninspiredcup: Not sure if serious, but I can't stand him either.

@Chutebox: The scene he's in I like is this one. The movie understands he's Jack Black and gives the audience what they want.

(Chris Pratt is alright)

Wow, not a single person predicted this outcome. Time for a Zelda movie now.

It needs to be in the style of his gamecube outings. Either the Wind Waker drawn style or the space world demo style.

What's the difference between Space World demo style and Twilight Princess style?

I've always imagined a Zelda movie to be like a Hayao Miyazaki anime movie. Zelda has that Miyazaki style to it.

I watched it and it was pretty cool. I like how it was pretty much: "Non-stop action!".

That's not true. Prior to release industry analysts were predicting it to become a billion dollar movie.

@jaydan: Not true at all. Before release, industry analysts and box office watchers were predicting it would gross $400-500M, in line with other top video game movies like Sonic, Detective Pikachu, Warcraft and Uncharted. Not a single analyst ever predicted a billion. The only people predicting a billion were "Mario Sweep" trolls as a joke meme... Only for the "Mario Sweep" to become reality.

@TheHighWind: While Sony is making games that prioritize story over gameplay, Nintendo is making movies that prioritize gameplay over story.

I don't got the time right now to dig for the articles I read about from before the release, but you're not looking at the ones I was looking at. There were in fact analysts out there that predicted a billion, and those were the ones I trusted.

I trusted them because 1: Illumination makes big bucks; and 2: Nintendo is a strong brand. If anyone had common knowledge of the hands behind this movie, predicting a billion was not such a farfetched thing to put out.

@jaydan:

I follow quite a few box office trackers and analysts. Not a single one of them predicted a billion before it released. If you know any that did, then feel free to name them.

A strong brand doesn't guarantee box office success. Pokemon is a massive brand, which led to many analysts predicting Detective Pikachu would hit a billion, yet it ended up doing just under half that amount. That's why they erred on the side of caution this time and gave conservative predictions for Mario.

And as a movie goer myself, I didn't see anyone predicting Super Mario Bros. movie would reach billion mark which took everyone by surprised, it was predicted making millions which we all knew it would but billion is another story. Illumination really hit a gold mine as this is their first biggest hit. The release in China also helps here.

Detective Pikachu was a gamble for sure and to be honest, reviews were mixed about it despite Pokemon is a huge brand and had that movie came out like early 2000/2010 it would no doubt hit the billion mark but this is my guess on that.

If this ends up beating the Frozen movies at the Box Office. Then I can only wonder what the future of gaming movies will be like.

@Jag85: Again, I'm not making up hocus pocus here, I have seen predictions prior to its release suggesting a billion. I think I saw something like that on BeyondtheTrailer on YouTube, and if I remember I think Grace Randolph was going off other analysts as well and there was people predicting a billion. It was probably a small group of people over the majority, but it was out there. I pay attention to this stuff too.

And of course, just because there's big names does not guarantee big box office (it never is a guarantee), but that's where these analysts will make their bets but it's not always a guarantee.

Off the top of my head, I can't even think of the studio that made Detective Pikachu. Unlike Pikachu, Mario has a big name studio behind it with a track record of making big box office.

That was the deadest giveaway to me, at least that it would have a chance, and suffice to say it happened.

I watch BeyondTheTrailer as well. Before it released, Grace was trashing the movie and claimed it wouldn't appeal much to general audiences outside the Mario fanbase. After it released, she was proven wrong and shocked at the massive box office numbers. You might be confusing her with the "Mario Sweep" trolls in the comments joking about it making billions and "marillions" at the box office.

Detective Pikachu was produced by Legendary Pictures (with The Pokemon Company). They hit a billion before with Jurassic World. Since Pokemon is a massive brand, there were expectations they'd hit a billion again with Detective Pikachu, but that never happened.

The only other Illumination movies that hit a billion were Minions and Despicable Me 3. They were only able to pull it off with the Minions franchise, but never with anything outside of that franchise. So it was a similar scenario to Detective Pikachu in that regard. Hence why analysts under-estimated the Mario movie.

@Jag85: That is not true about BTT. Before She watched the movie she was on the Mario hype wagon. She only really hypes things if she feels they're going to make a lot of money or if that's the general consensus of other analysts. That is kinda my annoyance with some of her takes. But overall she's pretty insightful of the business side of the industry if you look past her opinions on movies.

It wasn't until after she saw the movie she came back perplexed (she didn't like it) and that's when she started to say "I don't know if a billion is on the table now." But then she got roasted and owned up to being wrong.

China didn't help much. The Mario movie was a blockbuster everywhere else, but for some reason it under-performed in China, where it was surprisingly dominated by another Japanese import: the Slam Dunk anime movie. Yet despite the Mario movie under-performing in China, it was China that was responsible for making Warcraft the highest-grossing video game movie before Mario (despite Warcraft flopping everywhere else). Seems like Mario isn't such a big brand in China like he is in the rest of the world. That's probably because consoles were banned in China for decades and instead they grew up with PC gaming.... In other words, Warcraft is basically China's Mario.

How would Detective Pikachu have done much better in the early 2010s? I movie market back then hated video game movies, so I doubt it would've helped. But would've helped more would've been changing the release date so it didn't clash with Avengers: Endgame. Warner Bros were fools for thinking Pikachu wouldn't get eaten up by Endgame at the box office.

I didn't see her earlier videos on Mario, but only her videos after she reviewed Mario. And she was basically hating on the movie and claiming it wouldn't come close to a billion. But upon further inspection of her earlier videos before she reviewed it... It looks like she really did say Mario had a "solid bet" at hitting a billion! Why did she suddenly change her mind after reviewing the movie? She was on the mark initially, but then got it totally wrong after that.

@Jag85: Like I said before: Grace Randolph hypes the money game more than the movie. Lol

She largely understands Illumination but not enough Nintendo until recently, which is why her whole review went viral as the posterchild of critics being out-of-touch with general audiences.

She has since then owned up to her mistake of casting doubts after seeing the movie and that it will be a new venture for her to understand the brand better since Nintendo in movies is now going to be a thing. She has admitted that Nintendo is a whole new beast to her that she will study more.

She based her initial billion dollar prediction off other analyst reports as well.

Chris Pratt really knows which project to choose. Incredible talent I say the amount box office movies he starred is incredible.

That aside I still havent watched the movie. Hope it releases on streaming services soon.

They left out the Lion King remake...

@jaydan: I watched that video where she initially said it has a "solid bet" at a billion, but she doesn't reference any analyst reports. Sounds like it was her own educated guess as an Illumination fan.

At least she owned up to her mistake, and has been researching more into Nintendo and the video game industry lately. That must be how movie critics felt when comic book movies blew up some 20 years ago. They had to research comic books to understand comic book movies better. Now they'll need to research video games to understand video game movies better.