Illumination/Nintendo’s colorful, Easter egg-riddled video game adventure The Super Mario Bros. Movie continues to blast through box-office levels, attaining feats all the more impressive in the post-COVID cinema biz. This weekend, the Universal Pictures release passed another major milestone with an estimated Sunday total of $1.022 billion helped by a $68.3 million boost from 80 overseas markets (international total: $532.5M).
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is now the 10th animated feature to jump the billion-dollar mark, and is the 10th highest grossing animated feature of all time having surpassed Illumination’s franchise hits Despicable Me 2 (2013) and Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022). With $45.3M worldwide coming in from IMAX screens, it is the third highest-grossing animation release in the format.
The adaptation of the video game classic — brought to the screen by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic (Teen Titans Go!) from a screenplay by Matthew Fogel (Minions: The Rise of Gru), produced by Illumination founder/CEO Chris Meledandri and Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and featuring an all-star voice cast led by Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Keegan Michael-Key and Jack Black — got a big power up from its opening in Japan, where it scored the biggest major studio animation opening weekend ever with $14.3M. The pic became the fastest Universal release to hit ¥1 billion and is the studio’s biggest opening ever in the country.
The pic also opened in Korea to $5.7M, Illumination’s top performing non-holiday release. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is seeing the best returns from Mexico ($73.2M total), the U.K. ($56.4M), Germany ($43.9M), France ($40.8M) and Australia ($31.1M).
In indie animation news, Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume (CoMix Wave Films/Story Inc.), which opened in North America on April 14 to rave critical reviews, enjoyed a $2M weekend in 42 markets, bringing the romantic sci-fi/fantasy to $23.8M worldwide (where the film is released by Sony Picture Entertainment and Crunchyroll; Wild Bunch International and Eurozoom are also international distribution partners.)
Toho released the pic in Japan to ¥14.51 billion, making it the fourth-highest-grossing anime film of all time. It surpassed Shinkai’s Your Name. to become the top-grossing Japanese film of all time in China, adding up $82.3M in its first 10 days. According to The Numbers, the film’s current worldwide box office total is $304.46M.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie will likely not see a major animated contender for the box office crown of 2023 until the release of Sony Pictures Animation’s highly anticipated sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on June 2, Pixar’s Elemental on June 16 or DreamWorks original Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken on June 30.
[Source: Deadline]
