‘Super Mario Bros.’ Scoots Past $500 Million at Worldwide Box Office
Thirty years after “Super Mario Bros.” essentially began the notion of a video-game-based movie with a whimper, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has given the genre its first uncontested mega-smash. The $100 million-budgeted Illumination/Universal toon has now passed $500 million in global grosses, becoming the biggest-earning video game-based movie ever in raw domestic and worldwide earnings.
That includes $260.3 million in North America and $248.4 million overseas for a $508 million running total, with just $13.3 million of that coming from China. The domestic figure is not just well above the $191 million gross of “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” from last year, it’s well above the inflation-adjusted $212 million total of Angelina Jolie’s “Tomb Raider,” which earned $131 million in 2001.
In terms of overseas earnings, it still places behind – at least for the next few days – “Uncharted” ($253 million out of $402 million worldwide), “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” ($285 million/$312 million), “Pokemon: Detective Pikachu” ($306 million/$450 million), “Rampage” ($327 million/$428 million) and prior global champion “Warcraft” ($391 million/$439 million). All of those save for “Uncharted” over-indexed in China, while “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” absolutely did not.
It’s also, in just over a week, the second-biggest animated film since “Frozen II” in late 2019, between the $480 million total of last year’s holiday sleeper “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” and “Minions: The Rise of Gru” ($940 million in 2022).
Whether the Chris Pratt/Jack Black/Anya Taylor-Joy family-friendly adventure makes it past the “Minions” sequel, the strong performance affirms that Universal, not Walt Disney, is the current king of theatrical animation.
Of the 13 Hollywood flicks that have passed $500 million amid the COVID era, Universal has five of them, including “Jurassic World Dominion,” “Minions: the Rise of Gru,” “No Time To Die,” “F9 The Fast Saga” and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” The critically-mixed but consumer-approved franchise starter should earn around $75 million in its second weekend, bringing its domestic 12-day total to $335 million. If the 51/49 domestic/overseas split continues into the weekend, it’ll end Sunday night with around $655 million worldwide.
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