Mario Movie Sets New Box Office Records

It’s amazing how indie studios and developers like Illumination, Universal, and Nintendo were able to make such a massively successful film.

I really hope Nintendo was adamant about collecting all movie revenue in the form of Mario Bros coins

Seems like it’s poor critical reception isn’t going to stop its popularity. As a Nintendo fan I guess this is a good success for them. As a cinema fan, I’m just disappointed.

Although, the film is nothing more than an average kids film that is only so successful because of the Mario IP attached to it, it is still miles better than the animated stuff Hollywood produced the last years. Anyone remembers Strange World?

@Solomon_Rambling
>Universal, Illumination, and Nintendo
>"indie"
u wot m8?
Unless it's sarcasm, in which case, ignore.

No surprise there. Mario is a longstanding pop culture icon; sort of the Mickey Mouse of video games, you could say.

@ArcadianLegend99 Now I hope you're being sarcastic.

Such good news! Hopefully more films to come!! Wahooo

Mazza still doing the business, and this will pave the way for more Nintendo movie magic.

"Have you seen the Mario Movie yet?"

Nintendo life doing their part let the remaining Nintendo Life population to watch the Mario movie 4 weeks after release to raise the box office.

I'm onto you.

@Captain_Toad you're very funny.

@Liam_Doolan Wow only 4 movies have crossed half a million in North America . The pandemic must have really destroyed the movie industry. Now if it was half a billion it'd be a lot more healthy.

I watched for movie for the first time on Thursday (it got a delayed release here) and… I’m happy to say I found it genuinely pleasant and entertaining. (I say this as someone who thought the Sonic movie was an abomination that deserved all the critical lambasting it got…)

It’s just a fun, colourful romp through a fun, colourful world, and doesn’t try to be more than that… Which is probably just as well as the source material arguably doesn’t have much scope for anything more substantial.

There’s no random inclusion of the US military (looking at you Sonic/Monster Hunter/Transformers/etc.). There’s no convoluted justification for how the video game world and the real world co-exist. There’s no iconic video-game mascot being awkwardly shoehorned into a stereotypical American family and having to learn American family values before saving the world. There’s just… Mario running around and jumping a lot, which is really what Mario does best.

I can’t speak to Pratt and co.’s performances and I didn’t see the English language version, but the dub I watched was well done and by the sound of it the original cast did a pretty passable job too.

Not sure if I can say it deserves all the success it gets, because it has received a simply flabbergasting amount of success, but I’m glad it’s received a good amount of it! Certainly very far from the train-wreck I was fearing!

@Maxz I thought the Sonic movie was much more creative and interesting than the Mario one. And more enjoyable for me as an adult. Loved Jim Carrey in it.

https://youtu.be/HU80R7jGanE

Nintendo should release a new version of that ad made specifically for The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

It would sooo just sum up the situation perfectly.

@RareFan Puss & Boots was great. Encanto from 2021 was great. There are still great animated films being produced.

Making essentially a Minions movie but with Mario characters was a stroke of genius. Which is evident with the lack of a story. Thet won't be able to replicate this success and there's absolutely no way any of Nintendo's other IP's will be able to make anywhere near as much money

@Clyde_Radcliffe I thought The Super Mario Bros. Movie bettered both the Sonic movies in literally every single way.

Either way, it's made more money in around a month at the box office than both the Sonic movies made in their box office lifetimes combined, and with enough cash spare to possibly cover the third Sonic movies' lifetime box office take when that releases too--kinda mind boggling how much more popular and bigger a success The Super Mario Bros. Movie is across the world. The cinema-going audience is doing all the talking methinks.

I guess Illumination + Nintendoes.

Well, we are gonna see mario movie two then

@kingbk
Only a handful. But those days are over. DreamWorks is probably the only big Animation Studio left, that can tell decent stories.

@RetroGames I don't care which sold better, I'm not Nintendo or Sega's accountant. But still found the first Sonic movie to have much better storyline, writing and character depth.

I liked the Mario movie but also found it disappointing. I couldn't help but wonder if Miyamoto's involvement was responsible for the lack of good storytelling. I hope they take the feedback on board with the follow up but we'll see.

@PessitheMystic These days negative critic reception for a movie usually means it'll be a good one.

I read a New Yorker article about why the movie is popular the other day. The writer almost seemed angry at it's success in the midst of calling all of it's fans basically stupid. All I could think, "what an a***ole."

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-stupefying-success-of-the-super-mario-bros-movie

"Stupefying Success" sheesh.

Saw it with my family. Have the 4K and 4K SE pre-ordered for it.

@kingbk I thought Encanto was over-rated rubbish that seemed created out of an AI focus group. The only reason people gave it attention was they were desperate for entertainment during lockdowns. The movie bombed on early results and then all of a sudden people started doing 'Bruno' dances on social and attitudes changed. I swear to heaven I think Disney put people up to it - because they couldn't afford another miss after Mulan and Onward.

@Cashews “Stupefying” just means astonishing or shocking, and I think the success of the movie has been pretty astonishing. It’s been smashing records left, right and centre.

I don’t think the writer came across as at all angry. It wasn’t exactly dripping with praise, but neither was it particularly damning.

I watched (and enjoyed) the movie a few days ago, and still agree with pretty much everything written in that article. While my enjoyment of the film differs from the critical average, I still think the fervour with which people try to tear the critics down is excessive.

I think people’s animosity towards critics is, on the whole, less about the critics being ‘wrong’ and more about people being too insecure to admit that they like stuff that is… well… a bit insubstantial. And the Mario movie is definitely that — as is, say, a McDonald’s Happy Meal.

In the same way that McDonald’s isn’t going to win any Michelin stars any time soon, the Mario movie has unsurprising failed to establish itself as a critical darling. But I don’t need McDonald’s to win any Michelin stars to enjoy a Big Mac, just I don’t need the Mario movie to be a critical success to enjoy a fun, lighthearted romp through a colourful, attractively animated world.

Let the critics be critical. That’s their job. In the mean time, we consumers can enjoy consuming. The critics might warn us that something is the cinematic equivalent of junk food, but indulging in a bit of junk now and then is, if anything, a luxury to be relished.

Glad it doing as good as it is. Now all those critics can eat their own words. We all now know they were biased to begin and hatin' on Mario/Nintendo franchise. Notice how they have come back to apologize for this biased reviews that they did????

This is a movie i can watch for the second, hel even third time and enjoy it.
Best video game based movie ever.
"Mario nr1 wahooo"

This movie swalows both sonic movies lol.
And yeah Prat did a good job voicing him.

I hope the success encourages more film endeavors from Nintendo, but please DO NOT make a Zelda or Metroid film with Illumination.

@Dev9417 the “Disney of video games” is so unbelievably stupid. The two companies are hardly comparable.

Had thoughts about seeing it in theaters but the cost for what I read was only an 86 minute movie put me off. I’ll watch it on streaming or borrow it from my library, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, just not worth it to leave the house.

For the record I almost never go to theaters, maybe 2x a year, so it wasn’t like I was actively avoiding this. If I went 6-8x a year I certainly would have seen this.

I haven’t seen it

Seems strange to have a special category for "pandemic era" movies. When is the pandemic over exactly?

@Clyde_Radcliffe Yeah, you already said that you didn't like it. And I said what I said.

Clearly we both have opinions, and outside of those The Super Mario Bros. Movie is absolutely killing it at the box office and is now the highest grossing video game movie adaptation by a looong ways, completely and utterly deservingly so.

So there we are.

What a great family friendly movie.

@theModestMouse a rare negative take from you.

@Ralizah haha your comparison so funny 😂 Mickey have less popularity.

@Maxz "I think people’s animosity towards critics is, on the whole, less about the critics being ‘wrong’ and more about people being too insecure to admit that they like stuff that is… well… a bit insubstantial."

Except that belief is based on a similar ignorance to that of the "critics" regarding what makes a movie like this "insubstantial" or indeed substantial.

How about you accept that you are just insecure about not being able to fully comprehend exactly why The Super Mario Bros. Movie is so brilliant across the board and does every single thing it needs to do to succeed as a truly brilliant kids, big kids, family and fan movie. Hence the VAST majority of the people who watched it completely loving it and it blowing away endless records at the box office in its category and beyond.

Job done.

I found the presentation of how the world of Mario games can have a set of rules and background that can host characters and stories (not just games) to be entertaining. Also, I found how it began to fill in the relationships between characters (never really set up in the games) to be very satisfying.

It's kind of unlike most movies in that way and it held up just fine for me as a fan of the games and Nintendo. Thing is, many, many people are very familiar with Mario and probably get a little thrill out of that as well.

So, the traditional pleasures of movies like satisfying character arcs, relevant themes, intriguing plot, and emotional depth were a bit less important to me for this movie.

I think most adults unfamiliar with Mario and/or the games would probably find it pretty insubstantial, but still good for some laughs and shallow fun. Not to mention that the whole Mario universe is still relatively unique among fantasy worlds, so there's plenty to discover.

After it was over, I wanted to see more.

@Jiggies OK, humor me.

How are Nintendo, Universal, and Illumination, in any way, "indie"?

@theModestMouse Well most people would rather pay then pirate.

@Cashews a lot of people are like that on this website, they seem to think that having a sour cynical opinion makes them interesting and special.

It’s probably set a record for most comments on NL too 🤣 considering there’s like 3-4 articles on this topic in the last fortnight with 100-200 posts

@timp29 Breaking records all over the place. Lol

Best way possible to celebrate this iconic feat? Everyone.. go watch it again.. with friends.. with your families.. wahoo!

@Maxz And how else was GUN going to be introduced but being some military entity?

I haven't seen it yet, but want to. I've heard that it is just a good fun film with a lot of fan service and there is no agenda or "woke" politics in it. I think there was a huge pent up demand for something that you can take your family to and not not have to worry about having anything preached to you about. Hopefully studios realize that we just want to be entertained when we go out.

@RetroGames As I tried to make clear, I think the fact that it wasn’t aiming to position itself as anything very substantial genuinely worked in its favour.

It was light, silly, colourful, fluffy fun, and all the more entertaining for not trying to be more than that.

So many similar movies revert to the default plot about humanity being under some existential intergalactic threat that requires military intervention but ultimately can only be combatted by [insert mascot character], leaving the humans as impotent onlookers whose only role is to teach [insert mascot character] a couple of ‘human values’ as it goes about its superhuman business.

The Mario Movie eschews all that by basically just making the plot about a turtle who gets a star because he fancies a princess but then Mario gets the star and it’s game over for turtle.

That’s the plot. I feel fairly secure in saying it’s insubstantial. But I’m also happy to say that I enjoyed it and am glad it exists (I wish I could say the same for Sonic).

It reminded me of a pantomime. The basic structure is incredibly threadbare, but that only gives more room to fill with silly, lighthearted, colourful fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but neither does it take the act of ‘not taking itself too seriously’ too seriously, meaning we avoid sitting through 90 minutes of ‘irreverent, wisecracking, fourth-wall breaking one-liners’ that have become more egregious tropes than the tropes they’re trying to make fun of.

Anyway, we clearly both enjoyed the Mario Movie, so I doubt our positions actually differ too drastically. I’m just saying that the fact that I (and many others) liked the movie isn’t proof that movie critics are all a bunch of illegitimate frauds.

Critics gonna… crit, and while their consensus doesn’t always align perfectly with my own, I still think they have a right to exist. As the gap between the critical reception and box office success shows, their influence seems fairly limited anyway.

@PessitheMystic @Dev9417 If we’re talking in terms of the character of Mario versus the character of Mickey Mouse, then I would argue that currently Mario is equal or even more recognizable than Mickey Mouse.

But the Nintendo company versus the Disney company? Maybe if you compare today’s Nintendo with the Disney of about 50-60 years ago.

For Nintendo to equal the Disney of today, they would have to buy Activision, Square Enix, and Capcom — and then buy Sony. (= Disney buying Lucasfilm, Pixar, Marvel, and then Fox.)

@Maxz I'd say the issue for most people who are calling out the "professional" critics isn't with the critics who maybe scored it say a 7/10 or above and said they'd have ideally liked a little more story and additional character development, but the "professional" critics who have outright called the movie bad and claimed it has a terrible plot, no character development, rubbish pacing and so on. Most of them have also scored it far too low, with 36 out of 56 of them on metacritic [for example] rating it somewhere between 60 to 20 out of 100, which is laughable. Some have even said it doesn't look particularly good, which is completely and utterly absurd, as it's literally displaying some of the most beautiful 3D visuals ever rendered in an animated movie and indeed some of the best animation ever seen in an animated movie--and I'm saying that as a professional artist and animator. One "professional" critic, Grace Randolph, even claimed it was "problematic" and dangerous for children, which is bordering on insane as far as I'm concerned. So people are just [rightly] calling out those "professional" critics imo, as most of them are clearly delusional in regards to this movie.

And the plot, while simple, is still a well executed hero's journey that hits all the necessary beats and is very much perfectly structured and timed for the majority of the audience that will be watching it. There's also a bit more to it than you said. So your use of "insubstantial" regarding the plot, i.e, lacking, just doesn't sit right with me personally. Simple (which does not obviously carry any negative connotations) does not equate to lacking (which does carry some negative connotations). There's nothing essential lacking there, just a lot of deliberately trimmed fat. So I'd be far more comfortable hearing people say it has a simple but well-executed hero's journey plot targeted perfectly at the audience it is created for, or something along those lines, as that's actually far more accurate to the truth here.

@RetroGames I do broadly agree with all of this, and I should probably say that if I had to award the film a score it would be a fair bit higher than the Metacritic average (even in my most cynical, furrow-browed faux-critic mode).

The Mario Movie clearly isn’t high art, but I genuinely don’t think it’s insultingly dumb dross either. I think I would still happily describe it as ‘somewhat insubstantial’, in the same way I would describe chiffon cake as ‘somewhat insubstantial’, but… I really like chiffon cake, so I don’t feel the word is inherently derisive.

I do feel there’s a general tendency amongst gamers (and fans of any media, really) to be over-defensive over particular properties, and I think there’s definitely an element of that at play in the sweeping dismissals of ‘the critics’ that can be seen here.

However, I also thought the movie was better than the average critical opinion would suggest, and I’m sure plenty of professionals have written some unjustly whacko stuff about it too. It’s probably fair to draw attention to that. (Probably! A counter-argument would be that it just adds fuel to the fire of ridiculousness and that the silliest opinions should be left ignored.)

Ultimately though, plenty of people have gone to see the movie regardless of the less than glowing critical reception and it seems like a very significant majority (both of us included) are glad they did!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to enjoy a nice slice of chiffon cake washed down with a cup of tea. I’ve enjoyed this discussion, and I appreciate the time you’ve given to it!

@Maxz Glad to know I'm not the only one who can't stand movies that shoehorn the US military in where they don't belong. Avoided the Sonic movies for that very reason.

@RetroGames Was Grace Randolph the one whining about Cat Mario taking away Mario's dignity? Asking because I'm not going to even take the chance of giving that stupid review a click by looking it up myself.

Wow, critics have no idea. I went to see the movie with my wife and 17 year old daughter. It was THE BEST animation movie ever. I can't remember the last time I laughed that much and also shed a tear of nostalgia here and there... the story was great, the animation fantastic, voice actors out of this world cool... it's a 120 out of 100 movie... up there with Ghibli Studios... and then when you see the egg and hear Yoshi at the very end of the credits... EPIC... Mario Movie 2 coming.

@FirstEmperor Yeah. She said quite a few ridiculous things.

Finally saw the movie.

I liked how they explained their outlandish outfits.

Got some Ghostbusters vibes from the New York scenes, which is always good.

Would like to see yoshis feature more heavily in the next one.
Wario would be cool as well.