The Super Mario Bros Movie has been smashing up the box office. Now, the animated film recently reached a significant milestone that only 18 other movies have achieved.
The animated movie has now breached the $500 million mark at the US domestic box office in its fifth week. Despite being dethroned by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 for the top spot in the US box office leaderboard, the movie still earned a solid $18 million from the domestic market.
The Super Mario Bros Movie is the highest-grossing movie of the year in North America earning $518 million since it came out on April 5. Globally, the video game adaptation has grossed over $1.15 billion.
Super Mario is the first movie for famed animation studio Illumination to reach $500 million at the US domestic box office and it has surpassed Toy Story 4 as the fifth highest-grossing animated movie of all time.
The film had a strong first week in theaters, generating $204 million in the first five days since its release. The movie had the biggest opening weekend for an animated film in history. It is also the second-biggest debut for an animated film since 2019 behind Illumination’s Minion: The Rise of Gru.
The Super Mario Bros Movie was initially met with criticism and low expectations from fans of the video game franchise. Much of the criticism was directed at Chris Pratt’s voice-acting performance as Mario. The actor challenged nay-sayers to watch the film before reacting to his performance in the movie.
"I totally get it, man," Pratt said of the negative reactions. "There's a passionate fan base and I'm one of the fans. I get it. Mostly, people don't want something like this to get screwed up.”
The cast of The Super Mario Bros Movie was very confident in the success of the film. Cast members Seth Rogen, Jack Black, Charlie Day, and Pratt were teasing sequels and spin-offs weeks before the film premiered.
The success of the film will surely spark more talks of sequels and other projects based on the video game franchise. Most recently, Black, who plays the villain Bowser in the movie, nominated Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal as the next antagonist for Super Mario.
It will be interesting to see what Illumination has in store for fans of The Super Mario Bros Movie. Hopefully, we are watching the birth of a new cinematic universe based on Super Mario characters.
