‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Passes $1 Billion in Global Box Office Revenue

Rebecca Rubin, reporting for Variety:

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is officially the first film of the year to cross the coveted $1 billion milestone at the global box office.

As of Sunday, after 26 days of release, the animated video game adaptation, from Universal, Illumination and Nintendo, has grossed $490 million in North America and $532 million internationally. It’s only the fifth movie of pandemic times to join the $1 billion club, following Spider-Man: No Way Home, Top Gun: Maverick, Jurassic World Dominion and Avatar: The Way of Water.

I realize box office numbers like this aren’t inflation-adjusted, but it’s rather incredible — no pun intended — that The Super Mario Bros. Movie has grossed far more than any movie from Pixar (whose list is topped by The Incredibles 2 at $600 million). This is no ding against Pixar, but simply speaks to how valuable and beloved the Nintendo character franchise is worldwide.

What a coup it is for Universal to score this partnership with Nintendo for their theme parks. When comparing Universal’s parks to Disney’s, the gaping hole has always been Disney’s menagerie of beloved characters for kids — Mickey and friends, and an ever-growing list of new characters from new movies (including Pixar’s recent rich library). Universal had jack squat* for toddlers and grade schoolers. Now, they have Super Nintendo World, which like Pixar’s stuff appeals just as much to adults as it does toddlers.

Update: OK, my bad: my original link above was for U.S. domestic box office numbers. Worldwide, Pixar has 4 films that have grossed over a billion: Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4, Toy Story 3, and Finding Dory. My point though isn’t about which movies made the most money, but rather to assert that the Nintendo characters are that big of a deal. And of course it makes a ton of sense that Pixar has a few films in that rarified $1 billion box office stratosphere.

* In Orlando, Universal’s Islands of Adventure park has Seuss Landing, but as much as I adore Seuss’s books, his characters don’t have anything close to the sort of appeal Disney’s and Nintendo’s do. Part of Seuss’s appeal is that his style is slightly creepy. And Universal has let that whole Seuss Landing get sun-bleached over time — it’s looked disregarded, if not almost abandoned, for years.

★ Friday, 5 May 2023