‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Crosses $1B At The Global Box Office

Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, crossed the $1 billion milestone in its fourth weekend in cinemas. It’s the first animated film to reach the mark since before the pandemic.

Distributed by Universal Pictures, the film’s theatrical run has been one for the history books, and Mario Bros. passed a few more major milestones over the weekend. Among them were:

Domestic

• Best fourth weekend for an animated film.
• Best fourth weekend for any Universal Pictures release.
• Universal’s highest-grossing animation release.

Global

• Fifth film to pass $1 billion since the pandemic.
• Fourth-highest Hollywood box office since the pandemic.
• Seventh-highest-grossing film in Universal history.
• Illumination’s third highest-grossing film of all time behind Despicable Me 3 ($1.03 billion) and Minions ($1.16 billion).

Domestically, Mario pulled in an estimated $40 million, finishing the frame with a $490 million cume.

Internationally, Illumination’s juggernaut made $68.3 million, bolstered by releases in the major markets of South Korea and Japan. The film opened with the second largest opening in Korea this year, grossing a decent $4.67 million ($5.76 million over its opening five days). In Japan though, Mario topped the box office with a huge $14.3 million debut, the largest ever for an animated studio film and Universal’s best-ever bow in the territory.

With the updated weekend totals, The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s global haul now sits at $1.02 billion.

Next weekend, the film will finally be dethroned from its spot at the top by Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. That said, there will still be little competition in the kids and family space through the month of May and into June when Disney will release Pixar’s Elemental and Universal launches its new Dreamworks franchise Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken.

Other notable box office news:

The First Slam Dunk continues to perform well, particularly in China. Despite only being available in six markets, the film grossed another $12.9 million, good for seventh place globally. The Toei Animation-produced adaptation of Takehiko Inoue’s popular basketball manga has now grossed $232.9 million globally.

Suzume legged out another $535,000 in its third weekend in U.S. cinemas and now sits at $9.8 million domestically. That puts it well ahead of creator Makoto Shinkai’s previous films Weathering With You ($8.1 million) and Your Name ($5 million) and demonstrates an increased demand among U.S. audiences for anime beyond the big franchises.