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'Super Mario Bros. Movie' Tops $1 Billion Globally, Highest-Grosser Ever For a Film Based on a Video Game (variety.com) 58

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
"The Super Mario Bros. Movie" is officially the first film of the year to cross the coveted $1 billion milestone at the global box office. From a report: As of Sunday, after 26 days of release, the animated video game adaptation, from Universal, Illumination and Nintendo, has grossed $490 million in North America and $532 million internationallly. It's only the fifth movie of pandemic times to join the $1 billion club, following "Spider-Man: No Way Home," "Top Gun: Maverick," "Jurassic World Dominion" and "Avatar: The Way of Water."

"The Super Mario Bros. Movie" opened in theaters on April 5 and generated a towering $204 million in its first five days of release, notching the biggest opening weekend of the year and the second-biggest debut ever for an animated movie. Since then, it has become the highest grossing movie domestically and globally of 2023, as well as the highest-grosser ever for a film based on a video game. Those records are especially encouraging because the last time that Mario and Luigi graced the big screen, in 1993's disastrous live-action "Super Mario Bros," became a legendary example of Hollywood's inability to adapt video games.
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'Super Mario Bros. Movie' Tops $1 Billion Globally, Highest-Grosser Ever For a Film Based on a Video Game More

'Super Mario Bros. Movie' Tops $1 Billion Globally, Highest-Grosser Ever For a Film Based on a Video Game

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  • Cool, now adjust the stats for inflation.

    • Nothing tops Gone with the Wind just yet but this will crack top 20 or even top 10 maybe after inflation

      https://www.boxofficemojo.com/... [boxofficemojo.com]

    • Even after adjusting for inflation, any movie that makes over a billion would still be in the top 20 of all time.

      Rank / Title / Adjusted Lifetime Gross
      1 Gone with the Wind $1,895,421,694
      2 Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope $1,668,979,715
      3 The Sound of Music $1,335,086,324
      4 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial $1,329,174,791
      5 Titanic $1,270,101,626
      6 The Ten Commandments $1,227,470,000
      7 Jaws $1,200,856,389
      8 Doctor Zhivago $1,163,149,635
      9 The Exorcist $1,036,314

      • Interestingly, the number one spot is held by one of the oldest films on the list; Gone with the Wind came out in 1939. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was 1937. After that, you have to go down to The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1927) at 137 to find something that old. No film from this century made the top ten--The Force Awakens is the highest-ranking film from the 21st century.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Interestingly, the number one spot is held by one of the oldest films on the list; Gone with the Wind came out in 1939. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was 1937. After that, you have to go down to The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1927) at 137 to find something that old. No film from this century made the top ten--The Force Awakens is the highest-ranking film from the 21st century.

          Remember, this is adjusted lifetime gross, so not surprising to find movies that have existed for 70 years more than their competitors to have made more, especially as there have been Betamax, VHS, probably Laserdisc, DVD, maybe HD-DVD, and Bluray versions of, "Gone with the Wind," not to mention streaming and downloads. And I'm sure there are people who have bought it multiple times.

        • Also the ticket sales numbers paint the picture also, with GWTW pulling a bonkers 202M compared to as you said, the much more recent TFW with a mere 108M

          Guess you "had to be there" but GWTW really was a phenomenon

          • I certainly wasn't there but I'd guess it's down to there being much less competition for entertainment in 1939.

            I thought the ticket prices would've gone down (after adjustment) but that's not the case, they were $0.23 in 1939, which would be around $5 now, vs $10 or so that they actually cost now. https://www.theatlantic.com/bu... [theatlantic.com]

            • On the other hand, population and accessibility were much smaller back then, which increases the importance of those ticket-sale numbers.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Interestingly, the number one spot is held by one of the oldest films on the list; Gone with the Wind came out in 1939. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was 1937. After that, you have to go down to The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1927) at 137 to find something that old. No film from this century made the top ten--The Force Awakens is the highest-ranking film from the 21st century.

          You have to realize the landscape of entertainment today and yesterday are very different from each other.

          In 1937, you were i

          • In terms of a market of eyeballs think of a world population of a little over 2 billion in the 1930's versus nearly 8 billion today should give modern films an advantage on these sorts of box office record lists. So I think there is a fair amount going on beyond inflation, number of movie goers, and there not being anything better to do back then than watch the same film a dozen times.

          • Population is way higher now so ticket sales is not a fair comparison even after inflation. Access to movies worldwide is also much higher today as are translated versions. People now consume more media than is even healthy or wise. More options doesn't diffuse things a great deal; word of mouth and marketing are better today as well.

            Long term reruns brings in some money over time; however, I doubt the modern movies have much replay value in comparison...

  • The storyline itself would have been good even if not based on a video game. Yes they clearly tied in the (vast) Super Mario Brothers video game franchise but they seem to have done a great job of prioritizing the story telling over the tie-in.

  • It's not so much based on a game, as based in the game(s) Universe. And its a good story, that even those non gamers can enjoy. Well done.

  • formulaic family movie (Score:4, Informative)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Monday May 01, 2023 @02:43PM (#63489400)

    I took the kids to see it. It was exactly what you would expect from a modern animated family movie. Parts of the storyline are straight out of Shrek (adventure with uninvited sidekick). We enjoyed it but it was not memorable.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by J-1000 ( 869558 )

      I took the kids to see it. It was exactly what you would expect from a modern animated family movie. Parts of the storyline are straight out of Shrek (adventure with uninvited sidekick). We enjoyed it but it was not memorable.

      It was safe and it did what fans wanted: it stuck pretty close to the source material. There's definitely room the improve on the humor; maybe Nintendo will lengthen the leash on the sequel.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Nintendo views Mario as a franchise for young children. It's as family friendly as you can possibly imagine, even tamer than Disney these days. This movie was written for under 10s to enjoy.

        A lot of older people enjoy Mario games too, having grown up with them. Actually I didn't have a NES or SNES when growing up, by Mario Maker got me into the games about 5 years ago. For adults it's mostly user-generated content, like ROM hacks and more difficult Mario Maker courses. Nintendo doesn't do much for us.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
      You baughty the tickets and (probably) the snacks, the movie does not need to be memorable, jor evene good, it just need to no be shit ought for you to say "I'm never going to watch a Mario themed movie ever again". The "Mario brand" is strong enugh that enugh people will lap up anything mario related so borth nontendo, merch makers and the movio studios wull make absolute mint

  • A good kids movie (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dicobalt ( 1536225 ) on Monday May 01, 2023 @05:12PM (#63489772)
    but it's so predictable. Comedy shouldn't be that predictable. It's a real problem with modern comedy. I guess it's hard to write when you're constantly paranoid someone will be offended.

    • Re:A good kids movie (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @04:43AM (#63490724) Homepage Journal

      It's a movie for under 10s. To them every joke is fresh.

      It's interesting how the outrage merchants had to do a 180 on this one. Before release they were saying that the movie would bomb because it was too "woke". Princess Peach is no longer a damsel in distress, she is a girlboss and Mario is the incompetent bumbling idiot. As if that's something exceptional, and not the formula for every adventure movie in the last 20 years.

      Then it came out and was incredibly successful, so they had to u-turn and say its popularity was because it isn't woke. No LGBT characters, no moral messages, no Mary Sue characters.

      In reality it's just a very simple, and very competent movie. Nintendo never does anything controversial, at least not intentionally. Being a movie for under 10s, you could understand what's happening even with the sound muted. And that's fine, there is a place for that kind of entertainment and it's enjoyable.

  • really are plumbing the depths,
  • as it just looked like a happy, enjoyable movie.

    I've never played a single game of Mario anything and yet went to see it just because it looked fun, not some gloomy, angst-ridden voyage of shallow self-discovery.

    • That is a great description for a great many modern movies:
      gloomy, angst-ridden voyage of shallow self-discovery

  • Nintendo is notorious for holding rights to movies that are fully produced, but not released. Good examples are the live action movies. Only one of them "Super Mario Brothers" got properly released. The other 2, "Super Hornio Brothers" and "Super Hornio Brothers 2", only got a limited release on VHS, and are hidden away by Nintendo since then.

    Now with the movie they _did_ release gaining them a billion, they might re-consider releasing the other movies they have.

  • Eat your heart out, Uwe Boll!

  • It's really cool and in case we are talking on this theme, you know, I used to love playing in this game but some days ago I found a lot of different stuff about rimworld biotech [raiderking.com] and to be honest, it seems to me that it's an amazing one right now. What is your personal opinion about it by the way?

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