The Super Mario Bros. movie just had another record-breaking 2nd weekend at the box office after reaching $678 million in worldwide ticket sales. Despite being panned by critics early on The Super Mario Bros. movie has found fans on a global level. It has even become the 2nd highest-grossing animated movie in the U.S. since 2019’s Demon Slayer: Mugen Train and is quickly closing the gap to the number one spot held by Minions: The Rise of Gru which earned just over $942 million and was also a Universal/Illumination project. It would appear that Universal/Illumination is on its way to taking the crown formerly held by Disney/Pixar for repeated animated box-office records now.
The Super Mario Bros. movie has also gone on to earn the title of the highest-grossing video game adaptation ever after surpassing 2019’s Pokémon Detective Pikachu. The animated feature has easily beat out Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania which currently sits at $478 million in global ticket sales. Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and starring Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Keegan-Michael Key, Jack Black, Seth Rogen, Fred Armisen, and Sebastian Maniscalco, the film hit the theaters running with a $146 million opening weekend in the US and continued with another $87 million in its second weekend. While this is likely to be just the first of a new franchise of animated films the domestic ticket sales for its second weekend even managed to break records from a number of other well-known animated film sequels.
From The Direct:
- Frozen 2 – $86M
- Incredibles 2 – $80.3M
- Finding Dory – $72.9M
- Shrek 2 – $72.1M
- Toy Story 3 – $59.3M
It’s still too early to tell how far the momentum for the animated feature film will go but for now, Nintendo, Universal Pictures, and Illumination Entertainment can all rest easy as the money rolls in.