As The Super Mario Bros. Movie enters just its second weekend in theaters, it is already a massive, mushroom-sized hit. The film just crossed half a billion dollars globally — which makes it, after a single week in theaters, the biggest video-game adaptation of all time. Already! I would have assumed Mortal Kombat: Annihilation grossed $6 billion, but apparently I was mistaken.
Here are the current top five video-game adaptations at the all-time box office (via The Numbers):
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie – $508.7 million
- Warcraft – $438.8 million
- Pokemon: Detective Pikachu – $429.0 million
- Rampage – $427.9 million
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – $405.4 million
For point of comparison, the original, live-action Super Mario Bros. movie from 1993 grossed $20.9 million worldwide during its entire run in theaters. (For the math-inclined out there, that means the original Super Mario Bros. grossed 4 percent of the new animated Super Mario Bros. Movie in theaters. 4 percent!)
READ MORE: The Coolest Nintendo Easter Eggs in The Super Mario Bros. Movie
$508 million (and counting) also makes The Super Mario Bros. Movie the biggest film of 2023 so far, nudging Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (and its $474.4 million worldwide gross) from the top of the annual list. It’s also already the second-biggest animated movie of the pandemic era, behind only Minions: The Rise of Gru ($942.5 million) from last year. Both movies come from the animation studio Illumination, which arguably makes them the hottest brand in family films right now.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie was written by Matthew Fogel and directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, who were previously best known as two of the minds behind the great Teen Titans Go! franchise. The film stars Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as the Princess, Charlie Day as Luigi, and Jack Black as Bowser. Some of these names were pretty controversial when they were announced, but it seems like they all worked out in the end.
As for the future, you can pretty much bank on a Super Mario Bros. 2 (if not a 3, a 64, a Galaxy, and an Odyssey) movie in a couple years. These sorts of ticket sales can kickstart a decades-long franchise.
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