The Super Mario Bros. Movie has broken box office records in its opening weekend.
The video game adaptation took $376.5million (£303m) at the global box office in its first five days of release, beating Frozen II’s ($358m) record for the most successful global opening of all time for an animated film.
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The film also scored the best opening ever for a movie based on a video game, and beat Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania as the biggest film opening in 2023 so far.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, it also broke domestic records in the US with $204.6m (£165m) in takings: earning the second best three-day weekend for an animated title behind The Incredibles 2, the biggest five day launch ever after beating Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen ($200m) and the biggest opening ever for studio Illumination (Despicable Me, Minions).
Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, The Super Mario Bros. Movie boasts an ensemble voice cast including Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong.
The film is a collaboration between Nintendo, Universal Pictures and Illumination. It’s the second adaptation of Mario on the big screen, following the 1993 live-action film Super Mario Bros. starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo.
Black recently discussed ideas for an inevitable sequel, saying that he wants Pedro Pascal to play Wario.
In a two-star review, NME wrote: “It’s faithful enough to tempt existing fans to the cinema, but too perfunctory to be pored over. Is the Mario movie super? To paraphrase one of the title character’s catchphrases, it’s-a mediocre.”
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