In less than a month of release and with numerous records under its belt already, Universal’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie has passed perhaps its biggest milestone. This weekend, the animated video game adaptation became the first film of 2023 to pass the coveted $1 billion mark at the global box office. The movie added $40 million at the domestic box office this weekend — its fourth — and another $68 million from overseas territories, as it simply refused to slow down after having dominated the box office for the entire month of April.
Super Mario’s running domestic total stands at $490 million, with an additional $533 million coming in from overseas territories. This takes its running global haul to just over $1 billion. Super Mario is now the third Illumination title to pass that milestone, after Despicable Me 3 ($1.032 billion) and Minions ($1.157 billion). It is also only the fifth film of the post-pandemic era to pass $1 billion worldwide, and the 10th animated film in history to achieve this feat.
The film broke several records on its way to this milestone. It’s the highest-grossing video game adaptation ever, the biggest movie of 2023 at the global box office, and the second-biggest movie in the history of Universal at the domestic box office, behind only Jurassic World ($653 million). It’s also pacing just slightly behind the mega-hit Incredibles 2, which remains the biggest animated title of all time domestically, with a $608 million lifetime haul. Super Mario is now the second-biggest animated title ever at the domestic box office, having overtaken Frozen 2 ($477 million) and Finding Dory ($486 million).
Featuring the voices of Chris Pratt and Charlie Day as the plumber brothers Mario and Luigi, Super Mario isn’t the first time that Hollywood has tried to adapt the popular video game franchise into a movie. An ill-fated live-action film titled Super Mario Bros., starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis Hopper as the villain, tanked with under $30 million at the domestic box office in 1993.
Several Factors Contributed to Super Mario's Success
Super Mario’s success also establishes Illumination as an animation house to reckon with. The studio has now delivered three billion-dollar hits, with two other releases having grossed more than $900 million worldwide — Despicable Me 2 ($975 million) and Minions: The Rise of Gru ($939 million). Its success is also a reminder that children remain an underserved demographic — one of the major complaints in the weeks leading up to the release of Super Mario was that studios haven’t really released a kids' movie since December’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, which quietly ended up grossing nearly half-a-billion dollars worldwide. It helps that Super Mario ultimately played like a four-quadrant hit, successfully attracting not just kids looking for a colorful adventure, but also adults hungry to revisit their own childhoods.
Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, Super Mario also features the voices of Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, and Fred Armisen. You can watch our interview with Pratt and Day here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.