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The Future. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a massive win for Universal and Nintendo (who split the production costs), raking in $377 million between last Wednesday and Sunday. The success shows that when family movies are actually available in theaters, families will show up… so expect some execs at studios other than Universal and Disney to restart greenlighting projects that their kids can watch.
Mushrooming
The Super Mario Bros. Movie collected more accolades than gold coins this past weekend.
- It’s the highest-grossing debut of 2023 so far, squishing Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s $106.1 million.
- That makes it the biggest five-day debut ever, beating 2009’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’s $200 million.
- It’s also the biggest animated debut of all time, freezing out Frozen 2’s $358.4 million.
The movie did so well that every major theater chain’s stock price jumped.
Winning with no competition
While the launch of The Super Mario Bros. Movie is no doubt impressive, its outsized success shows how starved the marketplace is for true four-quadrant films that the whole family is interested in seeing together. Kids were ultimately the main draw, but adults who were raised on Mario also came out in droves.
The last movie aimed squarely at families was December’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (another Universal title), which was also a hit in theaters, rentals, and on streaming.
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