Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie has become a staggering box office success since its premiere last week. The animated adaptation of Nintendo’s flagship franchise has emerged from its first weekend as the best opening animated film of all time, achieving several other records along the way.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film walked away with over $375 million in sales in its first five days, surpassing Frozen 2 as the top opening animated film premiere globally. That includes a $206 million domestic haul, $146 million of which was earned over the weekend (remember the film premiered on a Wednesday). Overseas, the movie has earned over $173 million.
Additionally, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is now the top opening film of 2023 (beating Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), has become Illumination’s most successful opening, and has the best opening of any video game film adaptation (surpassing Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s debut). The film also has the biggest five-day premiere ever, a record previously held by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. If all of that wasn’t enough, the film also has the biggest IMAX opening weekend of all time at $21.6 million globally.
Needless to say, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is exceeding expectations, and it’ll be interesting to see if it can maintain such a strong start. To get an idea of how it fares, you can read our review of the film here. Be sure to also check out our interviews with the movie’s cast and Nintendo’s own Shigeru Miyamoto and Koji Kondo.
