The Super Mario Bros. Movie is now the highest-grossing movie of 2023. The film, which hails from Despicable Me studio Illumination Entertainment, brings the popular Mario video game franchise to life with a cast that includes Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan Michael-Key, and Seth Rogen. In addition to earning the best opening weekend for an animated film ever this week, it also became the highest-grossing film to be adapted from a video game.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, the Super Mario Bros. box office records are continuing to rack up. As of Thursday, the film has officially racked up $508.7 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 2023. It has surpassed the previous record-holder, Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which earned $474.1 million.
Could Any Upcoming 2023 Film Unseat Super Mario?
One astonishing thing about The Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s gross is that it has broken all these records in just 9 days. This means that its final total could be a truly staggering sum. While it is undoubtedly setting a high-water mark for the 2023 box office, it remains to be seen if any upcoming film can top it.
The Super Mario Bros. cast is star-studded, but quite a few other factors are contributing to its success. First and foremost is audiences’ familiarity with the source material, though that didn’t prevent the original live-action Super Mario Bros. from 1993 from becoming a flop. The other factor is likely Illumination’s knowledge of how to craft a movie designed to appeal to families across the globe, using the lessons honed from their ultra-successful Minions films.
It’s possible for one of 2023’s many upcoming tentpole blockbusters to eventually unseat The Super Mario Bros. Movie as the No. 1 film of the year. The schedule this year includes big films from huge franchises including the live-action The Little Mermaid, Fast X, and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. However, it remains to be seen if those films have the necessary four-quadrant appeal to blast past Mario‘s dazzling run.
