@MontyCircus One of the things I'm saying is that using the ticket sales metric to compare the relative success of films seperated by multiple decades doesn't make sense given how radically different the circumstances of the times were/are.
@MontyCircus The situation and indeed the entire world is completely different now to what it was like in the days of Gone with the Wind, especially everything around movies and how we consume them and the like, so it's somewhat absurd to try to measure the success of modern movies relative to that*. It makes more sense to measure them relative to modern times, and even then things have changed dramatically in the last few years because of Covid and digital streaming and the war between Russia and the Ukraine and so on.
In today's context, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is doing gangbusters by basically any measure. I think that's all 99.9% of normal people are interested to know about, especially in a gaming site like this. In fact, I'd bet 99.999% of them probably don't even know what Gone with the Wind is. So I think all you're ultimately doing is just muddying the waters for no good reason by bringing up stuff like that and trying to bring endless inflation into the equation and so on.
The cost of gas and electric has gone up about 100% in the last year or so in the UK, along with food prices seeing the largest increase in over 45 years too, which is so far beyond normal inflation it's like something out of dystopian sci-fi movie or what you might see in war times, so should we account for that and compare it to those old movies when considering that people still spent over 56 million going out to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie in the theatres in the last four weeks in the UK alone--it's a rhetorical question.
@Diogmites Yeah, all the trolls are coming out of the woodwork now. I wonder how many of them are bitter Sega/Sonic/Genesis/whatever fans who are upset because Nintendoes. You certainly don't have a clue about what makes a good movie of this type, that's for sure.
@MontyCircus The comparisons are what they are: Games typically get compared on unit sales, and movies at the box office typically get compared on box office gross (certainly now anyway). It's not you who gets to decide that or try to pretend it's otherwise, nor I. So, by the metrics most people are using now and have been for some time, it's completely legit to say The Super Mario Bros. is one of the top 100 grossing movies of all time. Also, it has a production budget of 100 million dollars and a gross of over 1 billion to date, which is ten times the amount and a stunning achievement. And, even accounting for say a 100 million marketing budget too (sources say it was closer to 40 million though), it's already made over five times its costs thus far. So, however anyone wants to look at it, it's a bonafide success. It's also made [in four weeks] more than twice the amount any other video game movie has ever made in their box office lifetimes, and enough to add both Sonic movies' box office lifetimes together and still have enough left over to possibly cover what the third Sonic movie is going to take in its box office lifetime too--and it's still not done at the box office yet. It's a truly stunning achievement, and that's just a fact. And try as you might, you can't take that away or diminish it.
@PinderSchloss If you actually think this is a "nightmare of a movie", you're so far out of touch that it's basically laughable.
And Nintendo has been a dominant force in gaming for decades, so this isn't some revelation. You should see what it was like in NES/SNES era when it was basically controlling the market with an iron fist, yet still producing some of its best content of all time.
If Nintendo keeps producing some of its best content of all time--I'm good.
@Switch_Pro Yeah, I was honestly very disappointed that the Nintendo Life reviewer couldn't see past some misguided ideas about what is or is not required in a movie like this to actually review it properly for what it is and what it achieved.
In terms of video game movies (and just kids, family, and fan animations in general to be honest), this is about as good as we've ever gotten when every single element that makes such a movie is taken into account, and the reviewer absolutely missed the mark. He made the same snobby/elitist mistake that a whole bunch of other "professional" critics did, imo, which is confusing a simple plot with a bad story, and indeed thinking that is more important that every single other element that constitutes a movie. Thankfully, the general audience enjoys movies by literally just watching them and then deciding how good they are overall by how happy and satisfied they are when they walk out of the cinema, and, clearly, most of them absolutely loved this movie. And I'm in the same boat as them.
This movie isn't perfect, and it isn't going to win an Oscar for its story or character development or whatever, but, for what it is, what it was trying to be, who it's aimed it, and for avoiding going completely and utter terribly wrong as could have been so easy to do in out totally weird modern times, it's a 10/10 for me personally. Objectively, the art and animation is absolutely stunning and right up there with the best we've seen from animated cgi visuals, the audio is brilliant across the board from the brilliant music to the excellent voice acting, the action and set-pieces are top-notch spectacles and very entertaining and exciting, the plot is simple but reflects a perfectly coherent version of the hero's journey the carries you through the movie beats in a way that any normal person can easily follow, the fan service is totally through the roof, and the movie is just joyful, reverent, upbeat, and leaves you grinning from ear to ear when you exit the cinema. To ask or expect much more than that is just absurd imo.
Yeah, I was discussing this with my wife yesterday, and although both The Lion King "live action" remake and Avatar: The Way of Water are technically done using almost entirely 3D cgi, I don't think most people would look at them and think they are animated movies. And I think that's the simple reason they're often not viewed/considered in the same category. As a trained animator with an honours degree in animation and electronic media who studied exactly this kind of animation back in the day using Silicon Graphics machines and the like, I agree that it might be less confusing to think of it as something slightly off on a tangent to typical "animation", maybe a new category of its own. I mean, I think this is literally why Disney itself called the new The Lion King "live action" rather than animation, and why Cameron isn't going around calling The Way of Water animation either. I think we can all use some kind of reasoning here to view them through a lense that makes some relative sense. So, The Super Mario Bros. Movie isn't gonna beat those "animated" movies, but it's gonna get pretty dang high on that top animated movies of all time list (which The Lion King "live action" remake is actually on, at least if you look at the one on Wikipedia anyway). Either way, it's doing gangbusters--made more money in 26 days than both Sonic movies made in their entire box office lifetimes combined, and in fact, so much better that it's made enough on top of that to also cover what the third Sonic movie will likely roughly make too. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a bonafide HIT.
@MontyCircus If that's what actually counted for most normal people, that's what the chart would read. Clearly, most people don't give a shat about looking at it like that; they just want to see a list that shows how high the movies rank next to each other. And going by that list, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has hit the top 100 grossing movies of all time. Trust me, that's the one Nintendo, Universal and even the likes of Disney are going to be analysing most, not how much it made relative to Snow White when it released like a bazillion years ago in completely different circumstances. Disney doesn't care that Mario is going to topple a bunch of its bazillion year old films, but rather than it's toppling a whole bunch of its movies from the last decade or so and even this year at the box office. And that's the one all the media is going to report on too, and indeed already is. I think we need to get more in line with Joe public when discussing these figures in here rather than nerdy data analysts looking at trends around inflation and how ticket prices have changed in various ways over the last bazillion years or whether people are going to see it in 2D, 3D, IMAX, 4DX, etc when most of those weren't even options in the past and such.
@Clammy I mean, it's already done stunningly well either way. Nothing in the video game to movie scene even comes remotely close. But, now that it's hit the billion, I just wanna see how high it can climb at this point.
If it makes another couple of hundred million by the time it's done, which, given all the other movies in a similar situation, it realistically should, it will actually be pretty high on that top 50 of any movies list and probably top 5 of the animated movies of all time list.
Realistically, it should even crack the top 25 movies of any kind of all time with little fuss.
That's rather spectacular for the first Nintendo animated movie in modern times, and even more so that this is a movie based on a video game that's blowing the roof off.
@Clammy Man, 14 million in Japan in its release weekend isn't that much. Even I was expecting more than that, and I was coming in much lower than some people I've seen. Some people are expecting this movie to reach 200 million there, but I think that's unrealistic. Maybe it will see an increase next weekend though, so who knows. I really hope so, because I would love to see Japan add a whole lot to the total.
@Cashews Yeah, and the 0.001% of people who think this movie is meh alongside a handful of "professional" critics aren't going to sway Nintendo in the slightest. The vast majority of people feeding back their opinion on the film are painting a very clear picture that Nintendo and Illumination did exactly what virtually all of us wanted, hoped for, and could ever realistically have expected, especially given how terribly wrong it all could have went in our very weird times. If they put out a movie at this level every couple of years for the next decade, it would absolutely be a golden era of video game movie adaptations. I for one am all for that. Illumination + Nintendoes!
@Baker1000 Yeah, I have literally zero doubt the movie will pass the billion mark, if not by the end of today then in even another day or so. After that, I can't really tell. Some people are predicting numbers as high as 1.5-1.6 billion by the end of its box office run. Given the numbers and trends I'm seeing, I think those people are being very optimistic--I'd be more than happy to be completely and utterly wrong on that--but I'm going say more around the 1.2-1.3 billion mark would be likely. And I'd certainly take that for sure. Hitting the 1 billion mark alone [in under a month] is just stunning. That's already more than both the Sonic movies combined during their entire box office runs, plus about another 300 million to spare, which is roughly another whole additional Sonic movie. It really is an amazing achievement for The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Major kudos to both Illumination and Nintendo.
I've watched the movie six times now--that came about in a kinda unusual way--and never once have I had the slightest issue with the plot.
As far as what I could have ever reasonably wanted, expected, or asked for, especially given our modern weird times and how wrong it all could have went, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a 10/10 for me personally.
I wish this film all the success in the world. And now I can't wait to see whatever movie Nintendo does next.
@Ear_wiG By a matter of course, if I call a move crap that you like, you're going to take it as an insult to your taste anyway, if you choose to do so. How about you just accept that you like it and I think it's total crap. I certainly don't count it as an insult to my taste that you like it.
Edit: Look, I removed the "Get some taste" part [that was directed at the author of the article]. Does that make you feel better and safer now?
@Baker1000 Well, the highest grossing movie of all time in Japan made under $300 million there in its lifetime at the box office according to Wikipedia (I think not accounting for inflation or exchange-rate fluctuations), and the highest grossing American animation of all time there, Frozen, only made around $180 million in its lifetime at the box office according to Wikipedia (also not accounting for inflation or exchange-rate fluctations, I think), so it's going to be a pretty big ask for The Super Mario Bros. Movie to hit those kinds of levels there too, especially after the pandemic, but I have my fingers crossed.
Note: All these details can be found on a combination of Wikipedia, Box Office Mojo and The Numbers.
Well, not according to the 922 million on Wikipedia and The Numbers, and 907 million on Box Office Mojo as I type, which is Sunday 30th April 14:46 UK time.
Now, those numbers aren't showing the Sat and Sunday figures, and I'm sure it will indeed be higher by the time the complete numbers for the weekend come in, but I'd just like to see a source that puts it even at 970 million for now (by Friday even), nevermind the billion mark.
Personally, given the current figures and how much they've dropped week over week and day over day, as well as looking at some of the best opening weekends of all time in Japan (only around 31 million in the first weekend for the highest grossing movie of all time there according to Wikipedia), I'm still struggling to be entirely confident it will indeed pass the billion mark by the end of today, but I'd be more than happy to be completely wrong on that one.
Well, I hope it does cross the billion by the end of Sunday, but it's not locked-in quite yet.
Also, wasn't it at 907 million by friday, rather than 970 million? That's quite a big difference there. I mean, it still reads only 922 million on Wikipedia and The Numbers (The Numbers specifically only has the figures covering up to and including Friday currently), and is actually still stuck at the 907 million on Box Office Mojo as I type, which is Sunday 30th April 14:46 UK time.
@-wc- You do understand that Nintendo Life has literally designed an option directly into the site called Ignore, right? It's just below the person's comment a couple of options along from the heart button. If you don't want to see any of my comments, that is precisely what that option exists for and why they put in the thought, time and effort to include it. So press it. That way nothing else I have to say should annoy or concern you in the slightest. The rest I don't need to hear about, and neither does anyone else on the site need to see you [and apparently this group/mob of people you speak of] not-so-subtly personally attacking/threatening me for my views. I'm going to now select Ignore for you, just to put that option to proper use. It's that simple.
Do not let him near it. Everyone will have blimmin South African accents, for Christ sake. And, did you actually see Chappie? District 9 was surprisingly good, but the rest of his work goes from meh to crap. God no!
@Pod Yeah, the success of this movie just means they're going to add one more string to their bow on the way to becoming a more complete entertainment company, with gaming always being at the forefront of course.
@timp29 The Tetris movie was utterly meh imo. Every single shot of a game in it it is ugly and plain wrong visually, as if it was created by some artist who has never seen one of these old video games in their life. They even had some of the actual facts totally wrong and at one point showed visuals from frikin' one of the GBA Zelda games or whatever it was, despite the movie being set years before that system even came out. Any shot where they mapped the kind of pixels over the real world was just abysmal visually and like some crappy low-budget and bad video gamer movie computer effect from the '90s. They also did that thing with people playing video games just slapping the buttons, showing the don't have a clue how people actually play video games. The movie looks drab and lifeless throughout. The scenario is absurd and totally unbelievable, and indeed not even close to the real story. I can't remember any of the music, although I know it had some Tetris stuff in there. The story and the way it develops is laughable and not even a patch on Mario's in terms of what both movies where trying to achieve respectively. Too many people are equating simple and concise storytelling with bad storytelling or something, yet think a crappy and farcical story with goofy and preposterous characterisation is good because it has forced drama and the like. Christ, even the few seconds of the real Tetris creator at the end of the movie showed a completely different personality to the one in the movie, which made him look like some oppressed and depressed slave to the system, when clearly he was just a normal happy-go-lucky guy normally. The characters are parodies of human beings. But, really, it fails at the one thing it needs to get right if it's based on a video game as far as I'm concerned, which is every single part where it features game graphics/visuals. And this is where Mario nails its mission than any other video game movie in history. Mario utterly stomps Tetris in my eyes. And Tetris doesn't get extra points for the story from me just because it TRIED to say more and have more drama and gravitas or whatever, because what it ended up with was largely worse (apart from some funny back and forth scene in the middle-end point somewhere)--and that makes the story/plot there worse as far as I'm concerned.
Are people unable to break these creations down into their various parts, judge and score each properly and accordingly, and then consider the movies all as a whole to get a realistic picture of where they stand?
Mario:
Visuals: 10/10 (as nice as any 3D cgi animation out there)
Animation: 10/10 (as good as any 3D cgi animation out there)
Sound: 9/10 (brilliant, even if you are on either side of the fence with the pop tracks)
Voice acting: 10/10 (seriously, if anyone expects more, they are just delusional)
Action: 10/10 (it's energetic, exciting, never gets boring, and has lots of great set-pieces)
Story: 7/10 (a simple and concise hero's journey. No more and certainly no less. And for this kind of movie and who it's aimed at, it did exactly what it needed to in order to not bore kids during the runtime while still keep adults engaged and entertained too)
Universal appeal: 9/10 (small kids, big kids, families and Mario fans will adore, and total casuals will really enjoy it too)
If anyone knocks all the points down so it scores a 7/10 (or lower) as if the story is more important than everything else, it's they who don't get how a movie should be rated, especially in regards to a movie adaptation of a video game.
Can't be bothered doing the same for Tetris, suffice to say it truly is average across the board imo, so it would indeed get about a 5/10 from me personally.
I honestly do not have a clue what the hell is wrong with people today and the way they view movies.
I just can't imagine how much some people today and especially the "professional" critics would rate and crap on some of the greatest kids, family and just action and/or fantasy movies of all time if they judged movies from the past in the way they seem to be judging them today. Would Star Wars (original) get a 7/10 because its plot is no more complex than Marios ultimately, nor the characters any more developed? Goonies 5/10, Labyrinth 5/10, Raiders of the Lost Ark 7/10, Ghostbusters 6/10, Toy Story, 6/10, Sleeping Beauty 5/10, Neverending Story 6/10, The Little Mermaid 5/10, Finding Nemo 5/10, Snow White 4/10, etc. Really!
@UltimateOtaku91 I honestly think we're seriously losing sight of what makes a movie good in our modern times.
I watched Avatar 2 at the cinema in 3D and it was technically stunning, but it was slow and bloated, although enough to certainly carry the movie for a first watch. I couldn't even watch it all the way through a second time at home though. Yes, it's technically stunning, and it's got some "important" message, but a movie still has to make me actually want to watch it beyond that first viewing to mean much to me in the grand scheme of things, and Avatar 2 failed. In that regard The Super Mario Bros. Movie utterly blows it away imo. I've watched The Super Mario Bros. Movie four times already and enjoyed it just as much each time, never felt bored once, and I'll be going again in about a week when it releases in Japan. And, given the relative goal of both of these movies and the audiences they are aimed at, I'd 100% say the Mario movie did a better job.
Now, the Marvel movies are a different thing, because they have so much in them that I guess anyone could find something to enjoy, and they usually have enough happening on-screen constantly that you'd be hard pressed to call them boring or whatever, but, personally speaking, while I really enjoyed a few of the earlier Marvel films--The Winter Soldier is great--I'm starting to find most of the new ones soulless and just bloated with OTT cgi and a bit too much of the message creeping in and so on. I definitely won't be sitting through most of the newer ones more than once or so more in my lifetime, and in some cases never again.
So, yeah, I think Mario is the better film, all things being relative.
I'm telling you this, people will go back and watch Avatar 2 in twenty years and realise they find it rather dull and dragging but will acknowledge it was certainly visually impressive for its time, and they'll watch many of these recent Marvel movies again and realise they're actually a bit soulless and numbing once you look past the visually over-busy cgi everywhere, whereas they'll watch the Mario movie and simply have a blast because it's just fun, a joy to watch from start to finish, and it will leave you feeling just as happy and uplifted as the first time you watched it by the time the credits roll.
I'm going to make a call right now that the Mario movie will be the one that holds up better over time pretty much all round, the one people will happily watch a seven, eighth, ninth, etc. time when it comes on some Netflix-like streaming service each summer or holiday season or whatever, and that speaks to the actual true greatness of these movies imo.
I find it funny how we're now seeing a few people crawl out of the woodwork calling this movie very "average" or deserving of the critics scores or whatever. The world is clearly a total mess when people can't just go see a wonderful, reverent, uplifting, magical and genuinely fun kids (small and big), family, and fan movie--also thankfully without any of the unnecessary woke/agenda/message/pandering/political crap--and appreciate it for what it is. Any criticisms are completely and utterly misguided given what this movie is, was trying to be, and indeed could reasonably be expected or asked of such a film, especially given our just weird times. The movie is great, the success is deserved, it's better than the Sonic movies, it's overall better than any other movie based on a video game, especially in terms of respecting the source material, it's better than most of Disney's and Pixars' recent films, it's doing gangbusters at the box office (more than both the Sonic movies box office lifetimes combined already), and I can't wait to see what comes from Nintendo next. Illumination + Nintendoes!
@bertraar Just go in expecting a movie about the Super Mario Bros., not Citizen Cain or whatever other stuffy cinematic masterpiece, and you should thoroughly enjoy it.
I'm not quite as bullish it will reach $830+ million by the end of this weekend--I really hope it does--but, hey, in three weeks it's already surpassed the lifetime box office totals of both the Sonic movies combined, which is a major achievement right there.
Not a huge fan of the particular look and style here. Also, you can see this is a shopped-out B or C tier Nintendo game (irrespective of how much fun it is to play), when, imo, it really should have been an A tier version. This should have been another AAA Nintendo game that instantly made everyone want more from it and such, but I promise you it's not gonna see much notable action after this for some time again. Nintendo didn't do the potential of the amazing originals the full justice they deserved in new versions in modern times.
I dunno, but with the quality of this first movie (10/10 for me personally) and it pretty much guaranteed to make a billion at the box office alone, I think I'm just gonna leave it all in their hands and trust them to do the right thing.
@datamonkey Sure, Sonic made $320,954,026 in its lifetime. Sonic 2 made $405,421,518 in its lifetime. And The Super Mario Bros. Movie has now passed $508,700,000 in two weeks--it's now the highest grossing video game film of all time--and it's not even released in Japan yet.
Now we just have to see what kinds of numbers Japan pulls in and how high it can climb on the Top 50 Animated Movies [of any kind] of All Time list (it's definitely getting on there). . . .
Honestly, I don't give a crap what any "professional" critic or website has to say about this move, including Nintendo Life, it's a 10/10 for me, particularly given I know exactly what it was trying to be, what it actually is, and what could reasonably be expected of/from it (even more so in our current times and knowing just how wrong it could have all went), and my wife thought the same. I'm off to see it again this evening in IMAX (already seen it in 2D, 3D and 4DX).
Looking forward to more movies like this from Nintendo.
I honestly think it looks ugly. I thought the same of the first game for the most part too, but I let if off since it was the first time out the gate. Now I'm not letting it off. These visuals just look meh, with really low-res and blurry textures everywhere (or basically none in the distance, and even just mid distance at that) and that really shiny dated '90-era computer-shadery toon/cel-shading effect that has been realised much better since then, but not in this game. Not a fan.
@PinderSchloss The flaw in you saying that is that I personally consider this to be one of the best video game to movie adaptations ever, so, imo, your expectations are just completely misguided based on the reality of what any sane person could have reasonably expected here from a kids (small and big) and family-centered animated film based on a beloved video game franchise. There's no perfect movie, even when thinking about the ones that many people consider to have the best screenplays of all time and such. Most of the movies the so-called "professional" critics applaud for the amazing writing and stuff, I find completely and utterly soul draining. So you just have to judge them based on how great they are in their own right and in the context of what they were trying to do. And, for me, that equates to The Super Mario Bros. Movie being frikin' brilliant. Illumination + Nintendo totally and utterly delivered, and the overall audience ratings and its record-breaking box office success speak more to that than your "expert" screenplay writing opinion.
The movie has blown away pretty much all other animated movies at the box office in its first five or so days on the market--and it's still not even released in Japan yet, which is absolutely going to be one of its biggest markets.
I'm not sure how the numbers work exactly, but if the first five days of release in Japan also get added to that five day total, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is going to utterly obliterate every single animated movies' five-day figures, and, Christ, every kind of movies' five-day figures for the most part:
@Bored_Cosmic_Horror Yeah, figuring out the audio stuff is another pain area for SNES and apparently even more of a hassle than the graphics stuff. With how convoluted the system is, and also how terrible the official developer documentation is, Nintendo certainly didn't make things easy for SNES developers, I tell you.
@carlos82 Well, there's gonna be a lot of Sega, Sonic and Genesis fans who are quite a bit more miffed than you are right now that their beloved mascot just got stomped once again by Nintendo's hero--I can promise you that. And, as a Nintendo, Mario and SNES fan first and foremost, who's had to watch Genesis get pretty much all the new recent indie/homebrew support over the SNES in the last few years, which has been very frustrating to watch happening for me personally, that kinda just makes me smile. The Super Mario Bros. movie breaking all kinds of box office records is a very nice win for Nintendo in modern times, along with the success of its recent theme parks too. I love seeing Nintendo at its best, because, when it's at its best, it really is slightly untouchable. And I think Nintendo is getting back to its best again, which is awesome to see. Nintendoes!
@Sonicka Well, as long as the same team is on board for making the sequel and the main actors come back and so on, I can certainly imagine the sequel being just as good a movie as the first one, possibly even better in some ways, and doing even better at the box office too.
@Gamergirl4 And when Captain Toad comes to defend Mario there, it's hilarious. That's totally Captain Toad though--Mario's bestest ever friend! Me and the wife were laughing our butts off.
That's an authentic adult response. It's not some "professional" critics who are completely out of touch with reality. It's not some tweens trying to pretend they're cooler than thou. It's not some haters with a fanboy agenda. It's not a bunch of people who are somehow confused about what they actually went into see here. It's not some group trying to push their misguided world views and teach us all the correct way to think and about every single political topic and using our movies as a vehicle to spread their completely distorted messages, and then negatively judging any movie that doesn't have spreading these message as part of its core function. It's just some old folks saying what's truly in their hearts after watching this movie.
Interestingly, I'd heard someone say on whatever review that the way Mario just arrived and then was immediately off on his adventure felt a bit lacking and sudden, like we needed some more plot/character development there or something to make it feel authentic and believable. And I was kinda worried about that myself before going to see it. But, both my wife and I immediately picked up on the really rather genius and hilariously over the top way that Captain Toad is used here to make that work without the need to overthink or over explain it, and that was enough for us to buy into the situation there.
Honestly, the way Captain Toad has clearly been waiting his whole life to find and go on some grand adventure, to the point he's just out there wandering around clearly trying to find something, and then Mario arrives and Captain Toad clearly knows in that instant its his big chance to create his own adventure and that's all the motivation he needs, which he energetically and enthusiastically drags Mario on whether he wants to go or not and whether he's even had time to process what's going on or not, is just genius imo. After that, I feel like I kinda just had to go with the flow in exactly the same way Mario did. Toad's found his adventure, we're all going on it together by sheer force of will, and the rest will figure itself out.
And once Mario meets Peach, I think she also gives him a chance right out the gate simply because he's the only other human she's aware of and she understands they can probably both help each other's causes in some way. So, she tests him to see if he's worthy, and he passes the test, at least enough to convince her. And then the larger adventure unfolds pretty much as you would expect.
I mean, it's just a video game Mario movie, so that really was enough for me to totally suspend my disbelief and go with the flow. And Captain Toad is now my wife's favourite character.
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Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office
@MontyCircus One of the things I'm saying is that using the ticket sales metric to compare the relative success of films seperated by multiple decades doesn't make sense given how radically different the circumstances of the times were/are.
And I'll just post this again too:
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1fm77j/the_problem_with_gone_with_the_wind_being_the/
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office
@MontyCircus The situation and indeed the entire world is completely different now to what it was like in the days of Gone with the Wind, especially everything around movies and how we consume them and the like, so it's somewhat absurd to try to measure the success of modern movies relative to that*. It makes more sense to measure them relative to modern times, and even then things have changed dramatically in the last few years because of Covid and digital streaming and the war between Russia and the Ukraine and so on.
In today's context, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is doing gangbusters by basically any measure. I think that's all 99.9% of normal people are interested to know about, especially in a gaming site like this. In fact, I'd bet 99.999% of them probably don't even know what Gone with the Wind is. So I think all you're ultimately doing is just muddying the waters for no good reason by bringing up stuff like that and trying to bring endless inflation into the equation and so on.
The cost of gas and electric has gone up about 100% in the last year or so in the UK, along with food prices seeing the largest increase in over 45 years too, which is so far beyond normal inflation it's like something out of dystopian sci-fi movie or what you might see in war times, so should we account for that and compare it to those old movies when considering that people still spent over 56 million going out to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie in the theatres in the last four weeks in the UK alone--it's a rhetorical question.
*For example:
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1fm77j/the_problem_with_gone_with_the_wind_being_the/
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office
@Diogmites Suuure, on all those points.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office
@Diogmites Yeah, all the trolls are coming out of the woodwork now. I wonder how many of them are bitter Sega/Sonic/Genesis/whatever fans who are upset because Nintendoes. You certainly don't have a clue about what makes a good movie of this type, that's for sure.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office
@MontyCircus The comparisons are what they are: Games typically get compared on unit sales, and movies at the box office typically get compared on box office gross (certainly now anyway). It's not you who gets to decide that or try to pretend it's otherwise, nor I. So, by the metrics most people are using now and have been for some time, it's completely legit to say The Super Mario Bros. is one of the top 100 grossing movies of all time. Also, it has a production budget of 100 million dollars and a gross of over 1 billion to date, which is ten times the amount and a stunning achievement. And, even accounting for say a 100 million marketing budget too (sources say it was closer to 40 million though), it's already made over five times its costs thus far. So, however anyone wants to look at it, it's a bonafide success. It's also made [in four weeks] more than twice the amount any other video game movie has ever made in their box office lifetimes, and enough to add both Sonic movies' box office lifetimes together and still have enough left over to possibly cover what the third Sonic movie is going to take in its box office lifetime too--and it's still not done at the box office yet. It's a truly stunning achievement, and that's just a fact. And try as you might, you can't take that away or diminish it.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office
@PinderSchloss If you actually think this is a "nightmare of a movie", you're so far out of touch that it's basically laughable.
And Nintendo has been a dominant force in gaming for decades, so this isn't some revelation. You should see what it was like in NES/SNES era when it was basically controlling the market with an iron fist, yet still producing some of its best content of all time.
If Nintendo keeps producing some of its best content of all time--I'm good.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office
@Switch_Pro Yeah, I was honestly very disappointed that the Nintendo Life reviewer couldn't see past some misguided ideas about what is or is not required in a movie like this to actually review it properly for what it is and what it achieved.
In terms of video game movies (and just kids, family, and fan animations in general to be honest), this is about as good as we've ever gotten when every single element that makes such a movie is taken into account, and the reviewer absolutely missed the mark. He made the same snobby/elitist mistake that a whole bunch of other "professional" critics did, imo, which is confusing a simple plot with a bad story, and indeed thinking that is more important that every single other element that constitutes a movie. Thankfully, the general audience enjoys movies by literally just watching them and then deciding how good they are overall by how happy and satisfied they are when they walk out of the cinema, and, clearly, most of them absolutely loved this movie. And I'm in the same boat as them.
This movie isn't perfect, and it isn't going to win an Oscar for its story or character development or whatever, but, for what it is, what it was trying to be, who it's aimed it, and for avoiding going completely and utter terribly wrong as could have been so easy to do in out totally weird modern times, it's a 10/10 for me personally. Objectively, the art and animation is absolutely stunning and right up there with the best we've seen from animated cgi visuals, the audio is brilliant across the board from the brilliant music to the excellent voice acting, the action and set-pieces are top-notch spectacles and very entertaining and exciting, the plot is simple but reflects a perfectly coherent version of the hero's journey the carries you through the movie beats in a way that any normal person can easily follow, the fan service is totally through the roof, and the movie is just joyful, reverent, upbeat, and leaves you grinning from ear to ear when you exit the cinema. To ask or expect much more than that is just absurd imo.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie absolutely delivered.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office
@PinderSchloss Then stop looking at and reading stuff about it, and stop coming into articles and comments sections that are specifically about it.
Seriously, what the hell is up with people today.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office
Yeah, I was discussing this with my wife yesterday, and although both The Lion King "live action" remake and Avatar: The Way of Water are technically done using almost entirely 3D cgi, I don't think most people would look at them and think they are animated movies. And I think that's the simple reason they're often not viewed/considered in the same category. As a trained animator with an honours degree in animation and electronic media who studied exactly this kind of animation back in the day using Silicon Graphics machines and the like, I agree that it might be less confusing to think of it as something slightly off on a tangent to typical "animation", maybe a new category of its own. I mean, I think this is literally why Disney itself called the new The Lion King "live action" rather than animation, and why Cameron isn't going around calling The Way of Water animation either. I think we can all use some kind of reasoning here to view them through a lense that makes some relative sense. So, The Super Mario Bros. Movie isn't gonna beat those "animated" movies, but it's gonna get pretty dang high on that top animated movies of all time list (which The Lion King "live action" remake is actually on, at least if you look at the one on Wikipedia anyway). Either way, it's doing gangbusters--made more money in 26 days than both Sonic movies made in their entire box office lifetimes combined, and in fact, so much better that it's made enough on top of that to also cover what the third Sonic movie will likely roughly make too. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a bonafide HIT.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office This Weekend
@MontyCircus If that's what actually counted for most normal people, that's what the chart would read. Clearly, most people don't give a shat about looking at it like that; they just want to see a list that shows how high the movies rank next to each other. And going by that list, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has hit the top 100 grossing movies of all time. Trust me, that's the one Nintendo, Universal and even the likes of Disney are going to be analysing most, not how much it made relative to Snow White when it released like a bazillion years ago in completely different circumstances. Disney doesn't care that Mario is going to topple a bunch of its bazillion year old films, but rather than it's toppling a whole bunch of its movies from the last decade or so and even this year at the box office. And that's the one all the media is going to report on too, and indeed already is. I think we need to get more in line with Joe public when discussing these figures in here rather than nerdy data analysts looking at trends around inflation and how ticket prices have changed in various ways over the last bazillion years or whether people are going to see it in 2D, 3D, IMAX, 4DX, etc when most of those weren't even options in the past and such.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office This Weekend
@Clammy I mean, it's already done stunningly well either way. Nothing in the video game to movie scene even comes remotely close. But, now that it's hit the billion, I just wanna see how high it can climb at this point.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office This Weekend
@MontyCircus Well, it's already in the top 50 movies of all time total box office, of any kind, and it did so in only 26 days, so that's great:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films
And it's already number 11 in terms of the highest grossing animated movies of all time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_animated_films
If it makes another couple of hundred million by the time it's done, which, given all the other movies in a similar situation, it realistically should, it will actually be pretty high on that top 50 of any movies list and probably top 5 of the animated movies of all time list.
Realistically, it should even crack the top 25 movies of any kind of all time with little fuss.
That's rather spectacular for the first Nintendo animated movie in modern times, and even more so that this is a movie based on a video game that's blowing the roof off.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office This Weekend
@Clammy Man, 14 million in Japan in its release weekend isn't that much. Even I was expecting more than that, and I was coming in much lower than some people I've seen. Some people are expecting this movie to reach 200 million there, but I think that's unrealistic. Maybe it will see an increase next weekend though, so who knows. I really hope so, because I would love to see Japan add a whole lot to the total.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office This Weekend
@Cashews Yeah, and the 0.001% of people who think this movie is meh alongside a handful of "professional" critics aren't going to sway Nintendo in the slightest. The vast majority of people feeding back their opinion on the film are painting a very clear picture that Nintendo and Illumination did exactly what virtually all of us wanted, hoped for, and could ever realistically have expected, especially given how terribly wrong it all could have went in our very weird times. If they put out a movie at this level every couple of years for the next decade, it would absolutely be a golden era of video game movie adaptations. I for one am all for that. Illumination + Nintendoes!
Re: Random: Yes, The District 9 & Gran Turismo Director Would Be Interested In Making A Metroid Movie
@Ear_wiG Perfect. That's exactly what I was aiming for.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office This Weekend
OK, now it really is over the 1 billion mark:
https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Super-Mario-Bros-Movie-The-(2022)#tab=summary
Yay!
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office This Weekend
@Baker1000 Yeah, I have literally zero doubt the movie will pass the billion mark, if not by the end of today then in even another day or so. After that, I can't really tell. Some people are predicting numbers as high as 1.5-1.6 billion by the end of its box office run. Given the numbers and trends I'm seeing, I think those people are being very optimistic--I'd be more than happy to be completely and utterly wrong on that--but I'm going say more around the 1.2-1.3 billion mark would be likely. And I'd certainly take that for sure. Hitting the 1 billion mark alone [in under a month] is just stunning. That's already more than both the Sonic movies combined during their entire box office runs, plus about another 300 million to spare, which is roughly another whole additional Sonic movie. It really is an amazing achievement for The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Major kudos to both Illumination and Nintendo.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office This Weekend
@FredsBodyDouble Totally agree.
I've watched the movie six times now--that came about in a kinda unusual way--and never once have I had the slightest issue with the plot.
As far as what I could have ever reasonably wanted, expected, or asked for, especially given our modern weird times and how wrong it all could have went, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a 10/10 for me personally.
I wish this film all the success in the world. And now I can't wait to see whatever movie Nintendo does next.
Re: Random: Yes, The District 9 & Gran Turismo Director Would Be Interested In Making A Metroid Movie
@Ear_wiG By a matter of course, if I call a move crap that you like, you're going to take it as an insult to your taste anyway, if you choose to do so. How about you just accept that you like it and I think it's total crap. I certainly don't count it as an insult to my taste that you like it.
Edit: Look, I removed the "Get some taste" part [that was directed at the author of the article]. Does that make you feel better and safer now?
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office This Weekend
@Baker1000 Well, the highest grossing movie of all time in Japan made under $300 million there in its lifetime at the box office according to Wikipedia (I think not accounting for inflation or exchange-rate fluctuations), and the highest grossing American animation of all time there, Frozen, only made around $180 million in its lifetime at the box office according to Wikipedia (also not accounting for inflation or exchange-rate fluctations, I think), so it's going to be a pretty big ask for The Super Mario Bros. Movie to hit those kinds of levels there too, especially after the pandemic, but I have my fingers crossed.
Note: All these details can be found on a combination of Wikipedia, Box Office Mojo and The Numbers.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office This Weekend
@Platinum-Bucket
Well, not according to the 922 million on Wikipedia and The Numbers, and 907 million on Box Office Mojo as I type, which is Sunday 30th April 14:46 UK time.
Now, those numbers aren't showing the Sat and Sunday figures, and I'm sure it will indeed be higher by the time the complete numbers for the weekend come in, but I'd just like to see a source that puts it even at 970 million for now (by Friday even), nevermind the billion mark.
Personally, given the current figures and how much they've dropped week over week and day over day, as well as looking at some of the best opening weekends of all time in Japan (only around 31 million in the first weekend for the highest grossing movie of all time there according to Wikipedia), I'm still struggling to be entirely confident it will indeed pass the billion mark by the end of today, but I'd be more than happy to be completely wrong on that one.
Re: Mario Movie Crosses $1 Billion Mark At The Global Box Office This Weekend
Well, I hope it does cross the billion by the end of Sunday, but it's not locked-in quite yet.
Also, wasn't it at 907 million by friday, rather than 970 million? That's quite a big difference there. I mean, it still reads only 922 million on Wikipedia and The Numbers (The Numbers specifically only has the figures covering up to and including Friday currently), and is actually still stuck at the 907 million on Box Office Mojo as I type, which is Sunday 30th April 14:46 UK time.
Re: Random: Yes, The District 9 & Gran Turismo Director Would Be Interested In Making A Metroid Movie
@-wc- You do understand that Nintendo Life has literally designed an option directly into the site called Ignore, right? It's just below the person's comment a couple of options along from the heart button. If you don't want to see any of my comments, that is precisely what that option exists for and why they put in the thought, time and effort to include it. So press it. That way nothing else I have to say should annoy or concern you in the slightest. The rest I don't need to hear about, and neither does anyone else on the site need to see you [and apparently this group/mob of people you speak of] not-so-subtly personally attacking/threatening me for my views. I'm going to now select Ignore for you, just to put that option to proper use. It's that simple.
Re: Random: Yes, The District 9 & Gran Turismo Director Would Be Interested In Making A Metroid Movie
@Quarth I think I see what you did there. I hope I see what you did there.
Re: Random: Yes, The District 9 & Gran Turismo Director Would Be Interested In Making A Metroid Movie
Do not let him near it. Everyone will have blimmin South African accents, for Christ sake. And, did you actually see Chappie? District 9 was surprisingly good, but the rest of his work goes from meh to crap. God no!
Re: Mario Movie Expected To Surpass $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
@Pod Yeah, the success of this movie just means they're going to add one more string to their bow on the way to becoming a more complete entertainment company, with gaming always being at the forefront of course.
Re: Mario Movie Expected To Surpass $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
@timp29 The Tetris movie was utterly meh imo. Every single shot of a game in it it is ugly and plain wrong visually, as if it was created by some artist who has never seen one of these old video games in their life. They even had some of the actual facts totally wrong and at one point showed visuals from frikin' one of the GBA Zelda games or whatever it was, despite the movie being set years before that system even came out. Any shot where they mapped the kind of pixels over the real world was just abysmal visually and like some crappy low-budget and bad video gamer movie computer effect from the '90s. They also did that thing with people playing video games just slapping the buttons, showing the don't have a clue how people actually play video games. The movie looks drab and lifeless throughout. The scenario is absurd and totally unbelievable, and indeed not even close to the real story. I can't remember any of the music, although I know it had some Tetris stuff in there. The story and the way it develops is laughable and not even a patch on Mario's in terms of what both movies where trying to achieve respectively. Too many people are equating simple and concise storytelling with bad storytelling or something, yet think a crappy and farcical story with goofy and preposterous characterisation is good because it has forced drama and the like. Christ, even the few seconds of the real Tetris creator at the end of the movie showed a completely different personality to the one in the movie, which made him look like some oppressed and depressed slave to the system, when clearly he was just a normal happy-go-lucky guy normally. The characters are parodies of human beings. But, really, it fails at the one thing it needs to get right if it's based on a video game as far as I'm concerned, which is every single part where it features game graphics/visuals. And this is where Mario nails its mission than any other video game movie in history. Mario utterly stomps Tetris in my eyes. And Tetris doesn't get extra points for the story from me just because it TRIED to say more and have more drama and gravitas or whatever, because what it ended up with was largely worse (apart from some funny back and forth scene in the middle-end point somewhere)--and that makes the story/plot there worse as far as I'm concerned.
Are people unable to break these creations down into their various parts, judge and score each properly and accordingly, and then consider the movies all as a whole to get a realistic picture of where they stand?
Mario:
Visuals: 10/10 (as nice as any 3D cgi animation out there)
Animation: 10/10 (as good as any 3D cgi animation out there)
Sound: 9/10 (brilliant, even if you are on either side of the fence with the pop tracks)
Voice acting: 10/10 (seriously, if anyone expects more, they are just delusional)
Action: 10/10 (it's energetic, exciting, never gets boring, and has lots of great set-pieces)
Story: 7/10 (a simple and concise hero's journey. No more and certainly no less. And for this kind of movie and who it's aimed at, it did exactly what it needed to in order to not bore kids during the runtime while still keep adults engaged and entertained too)
Universal appeal: 9/10 (small kids, big kids, families and Mario fans will adore, and total casuals will really enjoy it too)
If anyone knocks all the points down so it scores a 7/10 (or lower) as if the story is more important than everything else, it's they who don't get how a movie should be rated, especially in regards to a movie adaptation of a video game.
Can't be bothered doing the same for Tetris, suffice to say it truly is average across the board imo, so it would indeed get about a 5/10 from me personally.
I honestly do not have a clue what the hell is wrong with people today and the way they view movies.
I just can't imagine how much some people today and especially the "professional" critics would rate and crap on some of the greatest kids, family and just action and/or fantasy movies of all time if they judged movies from the past in the way they seem to be judging them today. Would Star Wars (original) get a 7/10 because its plot is no more complex than Marios ultimately, nor the characters any more developed? Goonies 5/10, Labyrinth 5/10, Raiders of the Lost Ark 7/10, Ghostbusters 6/10, Toy Story, 6/10, Sleeping Beauty 5/10, Neverending Story 6/10, The Little Mermaid 5/10, Finding Nemo 5/10, Snow White 4/10, etc. Really!
Re: Mario Movie Expected To Surpass $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
@johnvboy Exactly.
Re: Mario Movie Expected To Surpass $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
@UltimateOtaku91 I honestly think we're seriously losing sight of what makes a movie good in our modern times.
I watched Avatar 2 at the cinema in 3D and it was technically stunning, but it was slow and bloated, although enough to certainly carry the movie for a first watch. I couldn't even watch it all the way through a second time at home though. Yes, it's technically stunning, and it's got some "important" message, but a movie still has to make me actually want to watch it beyond that first viewing to mean much to me in the grand scheme of things, and Avatar 2 failed. In that regard The Super Mario Bros. Movie utterly blows it away imo. I've watched The Super Mario Bros. Movie four times already and enjoyed it just as much each time, never felt bored once, and I'll be going again in about a week when it releases in Japan. And, given the relative goal of both of these movies and the audiences they are aimed at, I'd 100% say the Mario movie did a better job.
Now, the Marvel movies are a different thing, because they have so much in them that I guess anyone could find something to enjoy, and they usually have enough happening on-screen constantly that you'd be hard pressed to call them boring or whatever, but, personally speaking, while I really enjoyed a few of the earlier Marvel films--The Winter Soldier is great--I'm starting to find most of the new ones soulless and just bloated with OTT cgi and a bit too much of the message creeping in and so on. I definitely won't be sitting through most of the newer ones more than once or so more in my lifetime, and in some cases never again.
So, yeah, I think Mario is the better film, all things being relative.
I'm telling you this, people will go back and watch Avatar 2 in twenty years and realise they find it rather dull and dragging but will acknowledge it was certainly visually impressive for its time, and they'll watch many of these recent Marvel movies again and realise they're actually a bit soulless and numbing once you look past the visually over-busy cgi everywhere, whereas they'll watch the Mario movie and simply have a blast because it's just fun, a joy to watch from start to finish, and it will leave you feeling just as happy and uplifted as the first time you watched it by the time the credits roll.
I'm going to make a call right now that the Mario movie will be the one that holds up better over time pretty much all round, the one people will happily watch a seven, eighth, ninth, etc. time when it comes on some Netflix-like streaming service each summer or holiday season or whatever, and that speaks to the actual true greatness of these movies imo.
Re: Mario Movie Expected To Surpass $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
I find it funny how we're now seeing a few people crawl out of the woodwork calling this movie very "average" or deserving of the critics scores or whatever. The world is clearly a total mess when people can't just go see a wonderful, reverent, uplifting, magical and genuinely fun kids (small and big), family, and fan movie--also thankfully without any of the unnecessary woke/agenda/message/pandering/political crap--and appreciate it for what it is. Any criticisms are completely and utterly misguided given what this movie is, was trying to be, and indeed could reasonably be expected or asked of such a film, especially given our just weird times. The movie is great, the success is deserved, it's better than the Sonic movies, it's overall better than any other movie based on a video game, especially in terms of respecting the source material, it's better than most of Disney's and Pixars' recent films, it's doing gangbusters at the box office (more than both the Sonic movies box office lifetimes combined already), and I can't wait to see what comes from Nintendo next. Illumination + Nintendoes!
Re: Mario Movie Expected To Surpass $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
@bertraar Just go in expecting a movie about the Super Mario Bros., not Citizen Cain or whatever other stuffy cinematic masterpiece, and you should thoroughly enjoy it.
Re: Mario Movie Expected To Surpass $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
@Hajilee I'm starting to think that was deliberately put in there for exactly this use. They saw it coming and created the perfect image/gif moment.
Re: Mario Movie Expected To Surpass $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
@Anti-Matter Once it releases in Japan it will be a fifth time for me and third time for the wife.
Re: Mario Movie Expected To Surpass $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
I'm not quite as bullish it will reach $830+ million by the end of this weekend--I really hope it does--but, hey, in three weeks it's already surpassed the lifetime box office totals of both the Sonic movies combined, which is a major achievement right there.
Illumination + Nintendoes!
Re: Review: Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp - A Pair Of Strategy Gems Delightfully Reimagined
Not a huge fan of the particular look and style here. Also, you can see this is a shopped-out B or C tier Nintendo game (irrespective of how much fun it is to play), when, imo, it really should have been an A tier version. This should have been another AAA Nintendo game that instantly made everyone want more from it and such, but I promise you it's not gonna see much notable action after this for some time again. Nintendo didn't do the potential of the amazing originals the full justice they deserved in new versions in modern times.
Re: Talking Point: Which Nintendo Franchise Should Illumination Tackle Next?
I dunno, but with the quality of this first movie (10/10 for me personally) and it pretty much guaranteed to make a billion at the box office alone, I think I'm just gonna leave it all in their hands and trust them to do the right thing.
Re: Mario Movie Already Set To Be The Highest-Grossing Video Game Film Ever
@datamonkey Sure, Sonic made $320,954,026 in its lifetime. Sonic 2 made $405,421,518 in its lifetime. And The Super Mario Bros. Movie has now passed $508,700,000 in two weeks--it's now the highest grossing video game film of all time--and it's not even released in Japan yet.
Re: Mario Movie Already Set To Be The Highest-Grossing Video Game Film Ever
Well, it's just passed the half billion mark.
Nintendoes!
Re: Mario Movie Already Set To Be The Highest-Grossing Video Game Film Ever
Wikipedia and The Numbers say it already is.
Now we just have to see what kinds of numbers Japan pulls in and how high it can climb on the Top 50 Animated Movies [of any kind] of All Time list (it's definitely getting on there). . . .
Honestly, I don't give a crap what any "professional" critic or website has to say about this move, including Nintendo Life, it's a 10/10 for me, particularly given I know exactly what it was trying to be, what it actually is, and what could reasonably be expected of/from it (even more so in our current times and knowing just how wrong it could have all went), and my wife thought the same. I'm off to see it again this evening in IMAX (already seen it in 2D, 3D and 4DX).
Looking forward to more movies like this from Nintendo.
Nintendoes!
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom's Final Pre-Launch Trailer Is Absolutely Stunning
I honestly think it looks ugly. I thought the same of the first game for the most part too, but I let if off since it was the first time out the gate. Now I'm not letting it off. These visuals just look meh, with really low-res and blurry textures everywhere (or basically none in the distance, and even just mid distance at that) and that really shiny dated '90-era computer-shadery toon/cel-shading effect that has been realised much better since then, but not in this game. Not a fan.
Re: Super Mario Movie Secures Most Successful Opening Weekend For Any Animated Film, Ever
@PinderSchloss The flaw in you saying that is that I personally consider this to be one of the best video game to movie adaptations ever, so, imo, your expectations are just completely misguided based on the reality of what any sane person could have reasonably expected here from a kids (small and big) and family-centered animated film based on a beloved video game franchise. There's no perfect movie, even when thinking about the ones that many people consider to have the best screenplays of all time and such. Most of the movies the so-called "professional" critics applaud for the amazing writing and stuff, I find completely and utterly soul draining. So you just have to judge them based on how great they are in their own right and in the context of what they were trying to do. And, for me, that equates to The Super Mario Bros. Movie being frikin' brilliant. Illumination + Nintendo totally and utterly delivered, and the overall audience ratings and its record-breaking box office success speak more to that than your "expert" screenplay writing opinion.
Re: Super Mario Movie Secures Most Successful Opening Weekend For Any Animated Film, Ever
@MontyCircus Dude, get with the program:
https://deadline.com/2023/04/super-mario-bros-box-office-marketing-mcdonalds-shake-shack-1235320790/
https://deadline.com/2023/04/the-super-mario-bros-movie-opening-china-global-international-box-office-1235318557/
The movie has blown away pretty much all other animated movies at the box office in its first five or so days on the market--and it's still not even released in Japan yet, which is absolutely going to be one of its biggest markets.
I'm not sure how the numbers work exactly, but if the first five days of release in Japan also get added to that five day total, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is going to utterly obliterate every single animated movies' five-day figures, and, Christ, every kind of movies' five-day figures for the most part:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_openings_for_films
Re: Super Mario Movie Secures Most Successful Opening Weekend For Any Animated Film, Ever
@Bored_Cosmic_Horror Yeah, figuring out the audio stuff is another pain area for SNES and apparently even more of a hassle than the graphics stuff. With how convoluted the system is, and also how terrible the official developer documentation is, Nintendo certainly didn't make things easy for SNES developers, I tell you.
Re: Super Mario Movie Secures Most Successful Opening Weekend For Any Animated Film, Ever
@carlos82 Well, there's gonna be a lot of Sega, Sonic and Genesis fans who are quite a bit more miffed than you are right now that their beloved mascot just got stomped once again by Nintendo's hero--I can promise you that. And, as a Nintendo, Mario and SNES fan first and foremost, who's had to watch Genesis get pretty much all the new recent indie/homebrew support over the SNES in the last few years, which has been very frustrating to watch happening for me personally, that kinda just makes me smile. The Super Mario Bros. movie breaking all kinds of box office records is a very nice win for Nintendo in modern times, along with the success of its recent theme parks too. I love seeing Nintendo at its best, because, when it's at its best, it really is slightly untouchable. And I think Nintendo is getting back to its best again, which is awesome to see. Nintendoes!
Re: Super Mario Movie Secures Most Successful Opening Weekend For Any Animated Film, Ever
@Sonicka Well, as long as the same team is on board for making the sequel and the main actors come back and so on, I can certainly imagine the sequel being just as good a movie as the first one, possibly even better in some ways, and doing even better at the box office too.
Re: Super Mario Movie Secures Most Successful Opening Weekend For Any Animated Film, Ever
Now the top animated movie opening of all time!
And it's absolutely deserved as far as I'm concerned.
Nintendoes!
And, remember, it still hasn't even opened in Japan yet.
PS. I really only wanted to write, Nintendoes!--you know--but I had to pad the comment just to get Nintendo Life to accept it. Yup.
Re: Talking Point: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - What Are Your Favourite Moments?
@Gamergirl4 And when Captain Toad comes to defend Mario there, it's hilarious. That's totally Captain Toad though--Mario's bestest ever friend! Me and the wife were laughing our butts off.
Re: Mario Movie Continues To Smash Global Box Office Records In Opening Weekend
@USWITCH64 Why not? Do you just not watch movies in general or something?
If you even remotely enjoy movies, particularly 3D animated movies, I'd highly recommend seeing it, especially if you are a Mario fan.
Re: Mario Movie Continues To Smash Global Box Office Records In Opening Weekend
Well, to the minority of people who would have us all believe this is a bad movie, here's what some 70 year-olds thought of the movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2mNLgiMz0Y
That's an authentic adult response. It's not some "professional" critics who are completely out of touch with reality. It's not some tweens trying to pretend they're cooler than thou. It's not some haters with a fanboy agenda. It's not a bunch of people who are somehow confused about what they actually went into see here. It's not some group trying to push their misguided world views and teach us all the correct way to think and about every single political topic and using our movies as a vehicle to spread their completely distorted messages, and then negatively judging any movie that doesn't have spreading these message as part of its core function. It's just some old folks saying what's truly in their hearts after watching this movie.
I'm basically on the same page as them old folks.
Re: Mario Movie Continues To Smash Global Box Office Records In Opening Weekend
@MarioBrickLayer
Some minor spoilers:
Interestingly, I'd heard someone say on whatever review that the way Mario just arrived and then was immediately off on his adventure felt a bit lacking and sudden, like we needed some more plot/character development there or something to make it feel authentic and believable. And I was kinda worried about that myself before going to see it. But, both my wife and I immediately picked up on the really rather genius and hilariously over the top way that Captain Toad is used here to make that work without the need to overthink or over explain it, and that was enough for us to buy into the situation there.
Honestly, the way Captain Toad has clearly been waiting his whole life to find and go on some grand adventure, to the point he's just out there wandering around clearly trying to find something, and then Mario arrives and Captain Toad clearly knows in that instant its his big chance to create his own adventure and that's all the motivation he needs, which he energetically and enthusiastically drags Mario on whether he wants to go or not and whether he's even had time to process what's going on or not, is just genius imo. After that, I feel like I kinda just had to go with the flow in exactly the same way Mario did. Toad's found his adventure, we're all going on it together by sheer force of will, and the rest will figure itself out.
And once Mario meets Peach, I think she also gives him a chance right out the gate simply because he's the only other human she's aware of and she understands they can probably both help each other's causes in some way. So, she tests him to see if he's worthy, and he passes the test, at least enough to convince her. And then the larger adventure unfolds pretty much as you would expect.
I mean, it's just a video game Mario movie, so that really was enough for me to totally suspend my disbelief and go with the flow. And Captain Toad is now my wife's favourite character.