The Super Mario Bros. movie will reportedly cross the $1Billion dollar mark at the box office this weekend.
According to box office tracking site Box Office Mojo, estimates suggest that the film, which is in its fourth week of release, will cross the mark by the time that tallies for this weekend’s earnings have been collected.
The film, which is a co-production between Illumination (Minions, Despicable Me) and Nintendo, is the biggest film of 2023, with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania coming in second and John Wick: Chapter 4 in third for movies released in 2023.
Overall, the second-highest-grossing film of the year is currently Avatar: The Way of Water. However, that was first released in late 2022.
A huge factor affecting this weekend’s box office is the film’s release in Nintendo’s native Japan, which only received the movie on April 28, almost a month after the international release.
Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto says The Super Mario Bros. Movie has exceeded even his tall expectations.
Speaking to Japanese press ahead of the movie’s debut in Nintendo’s home country, Mario creator Miyamoto discussed its performance and the reception from critics, which he acknowledged had been mixed.
“I did have a level of expectations that this movie would also do well [like the Super Nintendo World theme park], but I was very surprised that it went beyond what I could have imagined when it finally came out,” he said, translated by VGC contributor Robert Sephazon.
“You need some luck to achieve this level of success for a film,” he added. “While many foreign critics have given the movie relatively low ratings, I think that also contributed to the movie’s notoriety and buzz.
“I’d be happy if viewers could say that the definition of what a movie is has changed because of this film. That just shows how lucky we were.”
Among professional critics, it currently has a 58% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. It appears to be doing notably better with movie-goers, however, with over 10,000 verified reviews on the site delivering a current average score of 96%.
VGC’s own Super Mario Bros Movie review called it the best video game film yet.
“The Super Mario Bros Movie may not take any major risks, but it’s a faithful adaptation of the games and will appeal to children and fans of the series alike,” our critic wrote.
