The Super Mario Bros. Movie has done phenomenally in the box office, resulting in its opening weekend setting several records. The video game movie is based on the beloved Super Mario video game series about two plumbers, and though the film has seen some negative reviews, it's still faithful to the series and looks extraordinary. The movie might lack a compelling narrative, but it has gotten by on its abundance of Easter eggs, thrilling kart racing, and Bowzer's piano playing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the movie has blown box office expectations out of the water, and there are no signs of it slowing down.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie box office made $204 million in its opening weekend (via Box Office Mojo), and that's just the domestic gross. The movie has already made $375 million worldwide, making it animation studio Illumination's biggest success yet. A lot of outside elements prop up the movie, such as being based on one of the most successful video game properties of all time. Nevertheless, it has already made more than 2.5 times its budget, which is generally what a movie needs to break even. And there's a strong chance that the video game movie could join the billion-dollar club despite the Mario movie's bad reviews, but that's after it breaks tons of records.
5 Highest-Grossing Opening Weekend Of 2023
2023 hasn't had a blockbuster hit, as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the highest-grossing movie of the year, even though it's technically considered a bomb for Marvel with its $474 million box office gross (via Box Office Mojo). However, the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie still had an incredibly successful opening weekend, as it wasn't until its second week that there was a significant drop-off in ticket buyers. The movie didn't get repeat viewings from loyal Marvel fans, and negative word of mouth kept general audiences from having any interest in it, but it still made a respectable $106.9 million domestically in its opening weekend.
That was the highest-grossing opening weekend of the year, which wasn't bad for a movie that has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score in its franchise. However, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has knocked the Marvel movie down to the second spot. With a domestic opening weekend gross of $204 million, the film not only beat Ant-Man and the Wasp: Qauntumania, but it almost doubled the superhero film's domestic gross. And though MCU releases were once guaranteed to break all the box office records, it's unlikely that either Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 or The Marvels will recover the record from the Italian plumbers.
4 Highest-Grossing Wed-Sun Opening Weekend Of All Time
Where most of the opening weekend records that The Super Mario Bros. Movie has broken is in terms of animation, this record sees the video game movie beating every film that ever had a Wednesday-Sunday opening weekend. Though Wednesday doesn't sound like it should be factored into a movie's opening weekend gross, midweek theatrical releases are becoming more common. The Super Mario Bros. Movie beats the five-day opening weekend record, which hadn't been beaten for 14 years. The record was previously held by the Michael Bay-directed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which made $200 million during its five-day weekend in 2009 (via Box Office Mojo).
3 Highest-Grossing Opening Weekend For Illumination Ever
Though Illumination isn't considered the gold standard of animation compared to studio giants, they still makes huge hits. The studio's three main properties, Sing, Despicable Me, and The Secret Life of Pets are all billion-dollar franchises, and Despicable Me has earned almost $5 billion in total. However, while the studio's movies seem completely critic-proof and are total audience pleasers, The Super Mario Bros. Movie's opening weekend puts them all to shame. Illumination's previous highest-grossing opening weekend was Minions, which made $115 million over a four-day weekend.
But what makes that more impressive is that Illumination's budgets are extremely conservative compared to DreamWorks Animation and Pixar. Where those studios spend between $200-250 million per movie, Illumination typically only spends $70-80 million, with The Super Mario Bros. Movie being its highest-budgeted movie yet with $100 million. So if Pixar and Illumination movies both made the same at the box office, Illuminations would have a much higher net profit. That's why The Super Mario Bros. Movie's opening weekend is so great for the studio, as it has already made 2.5 times its budget, meaning it has become profitable for the studio after just its first weekend.
2 Highest-Grossing Opening Weekend For An Animated Film
This record previously belonged to Incredibles 2, which made $182 million in its opening weekend (via Box Office Mojo) - a huge feat for any movie, animated or otherwise. However, the 2018 sequel was knocked off the top spot by a movie with just 56% on Rotten Tomatoes. With The Super Mario Bros. Movie making more than Incredibles 2 overall, the Illumination film could make more than $1.242 billion and become the third-highest-grossing animated movie of all time.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is Disney's biggest nightmare, as it even has the potential to beat the two Disney movies, Frozen and Frozen 2, and become the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. However, it all comes down to what percentage drop-off the video game movie will have in the following weeks. In its second weekend, Incredibles 2 only dropped 58%, which is positive given that movies are usually expected to drop between 60-70%. It isn't easy to predict how well the video game movie will do in its second weekend, but the negative reception could have just as negative of an impact at the box office.
1 Highest-Grossing Opening Weekend Every For A Video Game Movie
Video game movies don't have a great reputation, as even The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been negatively received. The trend of bad video game movies ironically started with the first major movie adaptation, The Super Mario Bros., in 1993. Since then, video game movies have been slammed by critics and struggled just as much in the box office. But the genre finally found success with the recent success of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 previously held the record with an opening weekend gross 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, paving the way for the future of both the franchise and the genre.