All The Records That Were Broken By Super Mario Movie

Due to the Super Mario Bros. Movie’s outstanding box office performance, multiple records were broken during its first weekend. Despite receiving some unfavorable reviews, the video game movie, which centers on two plumbers and is based on the popular Super Mario video game franchise, looks beautiful and stays true to the source material. The film’s wealth of Easter eggs, the intense kart racing, and Bowzer’s piano playing have allowed it to succeed despite its lack of a compelling narrative. Perhaps not unexpectedly, the film has far exceeded box office projections, and there are no signs that it will slow down.

According to Box Office Mojo, the Super Mario Bros. Movie made $204 million in its first weekend at the domestic box office. With $375 million in box office receipts so far, the film is Illumination Studios’ biggest hit to date. The movie is supported by a multitude of external factors, such as the fact that it is based on one of the most popular video game franchises ever. Although a movie typically needs to make 2.5 times its budget in order to break even, this one has already made more than that. Despite the negative reviews for the Mario movie, there is a good probability that the video game movie will surpass $1 billion in revenue, but only after it sets other records.

All The Records That Were Broken By Super Mario Movie

1. Highest-Grossing Opening Weekend Every For A Video Game Movie

Even The Super Mario Bros. Movie garnered poor reviews, so video game movies don’t exactly have a good reputation. Ironically, it was the first significant video game adaptation, The Super Mario Bros., released in 1993, that kicked off the pattern of poor video game movies. Since then, criticism of and difficulties at the box office with video game movies have increased. The current popularity of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, however, was the genre’s first real commercial success. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had held the record with an opening weekend total of $72 million, but The Super Mario Bros. Movie made almost three times that and has a better box office than any video game movie, setting the way for both the franchise’s and the genre’s future.

2. Highest-Grossing Opening Weekend For An Animated Film

The previous holder of this record was Incredibles 2, which brought in $182 million on its opening weekend (according to Box Office Mojo). This is a remarkable achievement for any film, whether it be animated or not. A film with only 56% on Rotten Tomatoes dethroned the 2018 sequel from the top slot, nevertheless. The Illumination film may earn more than $1.242 billion and rank as the third-highest-grossing animated film of all time if The Super Mario Bros. Movie earns more money overall than Incredibles 2.

Disney’s worst nightmare is The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which has a chance to surpass the two Disney films Frozen and Frozen 2 and become the highest-grossing animated film of all time. But ultimately, it depends on how much of a decline the video game movie will have in the coming weeks. Incredibles 2 only experienced a 58% dip in its second weekend, which is better than predicted given that movies often have drops of between 60 and 70%. It’s difficult to forecast how well the video game movie will perform during its second weekend, but the unfavorable reviews might have a similar negative effect on ticket sales.

3. Highest-Grossing Opening Weekend For Illumination Ever

Despite not being the industry leader in animation like the other studios, Illumination nevertheless produces blockbuster films. The three primary films produced by the company, Sing, Despicable Me, and The Secret Life of Pets, have collectively grossed over $1 billion. Despicable Me has made approximately $5 billion. The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s opening weekend, however, puts all of the studio’s other films to shame, despite the fact that they seem to be utterly immune to negative reviews and are huge crowd pleasers. The previous top opening weekend for Illumination was Minions, which brought in $115 million over a four-day period.

Illumination’s budgets, however, are incredibly modest in comparison to those of DreamWorks Animation and Pixar, which makes that achievement all the more astounding. The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Illumination’s highest-budget film to date, cost $100 million, compared to major studios’ average expenditures of $200–250 million each film. Illumination generally spends only $70-80 million. Illuminations would therefore have a significantly bigger net profit if Pixar and Illumination films had the same box office success. The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s first weekend is particularly successful for the company because it has already generated 2.5 times its original budget, turning a profit after just one weekend.

4. Highest-Grossing Wed-Sun Opening Weekend Of All Time

The Super Mario Bros. Movie has smashed a lot of animation-related opening weekend records, but this record finds the video game movie defeating every movie that ever had a Wednesday-Sunday opening weekend. Even if it doesn’t seem like the opening weekend box office for a movie should take Wednesday into account, midweek cinema releases are becoming more frequent. The Super Mario Bros. Movie breaks the previous record for a five-day opening weekend, which stood for 14 years. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which was directed by Michael Bay and earned $200 million over a five-day weekend in 2009 (according to Box Office Mojo), previously held the record.

5. Highest-Grossing Opening Weekend Of 2023

Since Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which has a $474 million domestic box office haul and is essentially a flop for Marvel, is the highest-grossing film of the year (per Box Office Mojo), 2023 hasn’t had a big hit. Although there was a considerable decline in ticket sales in the second week, the Marvel Cinematic Universe film nevertheless enjoyed a phenomenal opening weekend. Despite the fact that the film failed to pique the interest of devoted Marvel fans and that ordinary viewers were uninterested in it due to bad word of mouth, it nonetheless earned a solid $106.9 million domestically in its first weekend.

It wasn’t terrible for a film with the lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating in its franchise to have the greatest opening weekend gross of the year. The Marvel movie, however, has been overtaken by The Super Mario Bros. Movie and dropped to second place. The movie not only outperformed Ant-Man and the Wasp: Qauntumania with a domestic opening weekend gross of $204 million, but it also nearly doubled the superhero movie’s domestic take. It’s also improbable that either Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 or The Marvels will retake the box office crown from the Italian plumbers, despite the fact that MCU films were once assured to shatter all previous marks.