Mario movie smashes $400M
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has now topped $400 million worldwide, pushing it up the ranks of the highest‑grossing video‑game adaptations and showing that April remains a powerful window for game‑to‑film releases. (Box‑office tracking on April 8 confirmed the film’s climb past the $400M mark.) (gamespot.com)
In eight days, Nintendo and Illumination turned a space-themed Mario sequel into a $400 million global hit, after the movie opened on April 1 in the United States and many other markets and then kept adding weekday sales fast enough to clear the mark by April 8. (gamespot.com) The climb started with a five-day launch of about $372.5 million worldwide, including $190.1 million in North America and $182.4 million from 80 overseas markets. (cnbc.com) By April 9, Box Office Mojo listed the movie at about $372.6 million, while The Numbers had it near $389.5 million, which shows how box-office trackers can lag each other by a day or two as studios report new totals. (boxofficemojo.com) (the-numbers.com) GameSpot reported that the new total pushed the film past Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Uncharted on the all-time chart for movies based on video games, lifting it to No. 7 worldwide. (gamespot.com) This is the second Mario movie from Nintendo, Illumination, and Universal after 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie earned more than $1.3 billion worldwide. Nintendo said the same core creative team returned, including producers Chris Meledandri and Shigeru Miyamoto, directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, and writer Matthew Fogel. (nintendo.co.jp) The release date matters almost as much as the character. Universal launched the sequel on Wednesday, April 1, during school spring breaks and just ahead of Easter, the same early-April corridor that helped the first Mario movie explode in 2023. (cnbc.com) (nintendo.co.jp) The movie also opened huge even though reviews were weak. CNBC reported a 40% Rotten Tomatoes score, but family audiences gave it five out of five stars in PostTrak polling and general audiences gave it an A-minus in CinemaScore. (cnbc.com) That gap between critics and ticket buyers is becoming normal for game adaptations. A film built from a character people have played for decades can sell like a live event, especially when the ticket is for parents, kids, and nostalgia all at once. (cnbc.com) (nintendo.co.jp) The sequel still has room to grow because Japan, one of Nintendo’s home markets, does not get the movie until April 24. Nintendo announced that staggered rollout in March, so the worldwide total that crossed $400 million arrived before one of its biggest territories even opened. (nintendo.co.jp) The simplest read is that Mario is no longer a risky adaptation and April is no longer a quiet month. One Nintendo movie made more than $1.3 billion in 2023, and the next one needed barely more than a week to break $400 million in 2026. (nintendo.co.jp) (gamespot.com)
