‘The Super Mario Bros Movie’ passes $500 million at box office

The fan-favorite ‘The Super Mario Bros Movie’ just surpassed $500 million at the global box office. This milestone makes the movie the most successful video game adaptation thus far, and the second most successful animated movie since 2019.

The movie was produced by Universal, Illumination, and Nintendo. It was released less than two weeks ago, on April 5, 2023, and already, its success makes it the highest-grossing film of 2023 both globally and domestically.

So far, ‘The Super Mario Bros Movie’ has earned $260.3 million domestically and $248.4 million internationally, making its worldwide earnings a whopping $508.7 million.

The film adaptation had a budget of $100 million.

‘The Super Mario Bros Movie’ was decades in the making

With all its recent success, it might be surprising to know that the movie almost did not get made. Nintendo was hesitant to make an adaptation of the game after the 1993 movie ‘Super Mario Bros’ bombed.

Still, that 1993 film was a special case. Earning the title of one of the ‘Worst Movies of All Time’, the movie was marked by constant fights between the producers and directors.

As ‘Super Mario Bros Movie’ producer and Nintendo exec Shigeru Miyamoto told Variety, he wanted to do the original video game justice.

“We were fearful of all the failure of past IP adaptations, where there’s a license and a distance between the original creators and the creators of the films,” Miyamoto said.

“The fans get outraged and mad because the studios didn’t do justice to the original work. We really didn’t want a backlash.”

‘The Super Mario Bros Movie’ might be Hollywood’s ticket into the video game industry

‘The Super Mario Bros Movie’ did not suffer the same fate, and is performing exceptionally well, already becoming the biggest video game adaptation yet. It beat out largely successful adaptations ‘Warcraft’ (based on the video game of the same name) and ‘Pokémon: Detective Pikachu’ (based on the Pokémon franchise).

Many critics wonder if the film’s success might mean more video game adaptations are on the horizon. With video games generating $350 billion in revenue every year, it seems more than likely.

‘The Super Mario Bros Movie’ post-credits scene also hints at a potential sequel, though nothing is confirmed yet.