Mario and Luigi have risen to become the kings of video game adaptations, as The Super Mario Bros. Movie is officially the highest-grossing movie to ever be made based on a video game. Worldwide, the animated feature film has surpassed $500 million in ticket sales, with over $260 million coming in domestically and another $248 million from overseas. Officially, the film is at $508.7 million, and given that it's still going strong with is theatrical presence, that total will only continue to climb moving forward.
The record that was previously set for the highest-grossing video game adaptation was 2016's Warcraft, based on the popular video game series. That film had reached around $439 million, which was the standing record until a certain Italian plumber and his brother came along. In 2019, Detective Pikachu came pretty close to dethroning Warcraft, as the Pokemon-based film drew just over $433 million at the box office. That success has often been credited as helping to get many of the more recent adaptations, some of which are now in development, to be greenlit for live-action adaptations.
We are only in the fourth month of the year, and things can change by the time we get to 2024, but as it stands, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is also the highest-grossing film overall for 2023. It had even flew past the big-budget Marvel movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which was the highest earner of the year with nearly $467 million pulled in at the box office. The Super Mario Bros. Movie was able to break that record in just six days, and it's going to be a challenge for other movies to match this success as we go through the rest of the year.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie's Success Will Most Likely Bring About More Adaptations
In addition to the high profits, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has also garnered a very positive response from viewers. Despite a mixed reception with Rotten Tomatoes critics, the audience score is nearly perfect, sitting at 96% fresh. Happy filmgoers and record-breaking ticket sales are the two most important ingredients when it comes to spawning a franchise, and chances are The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2 is something that seems inevitable now.
It's easy to speculate that this success can also help get some other titles made for a potential Nintendo Cinematic Universe. Some fans have long wanted a proper adaptation of The Legend of Zelda, and that possibility looks to be much higher now that Nintendo has destroyed the competition with the video game adaptations. Perhaps we can get some other notable titles from Nintendo for other films, like Metroid, Kirby, and even Super Smash Bros. for the inevitable crossover.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is now playing in movie theaters.