As it nears the end of its remarkable theatrical run, Universal and Illumination Entertainment’s movie adaptation of Nintendo’s "Super Mario Bros." video game franchise has passed what might be its final major milestone at the box office.
The video game adaptation has been playing in theaters worldwide for about two months now, and during this time, it has broken numerous box office records.
Earlier this week, Super Mario achieved its biggest feat yet, as it surpassed "Frozen" to become the second-biggest animated movie of all time at the global box office.
With $560 million at the domestic box office and a further $727 million from overseas territories, Super Mario has now made a staggering $1.288 billion worldwide, overtaking Frozen’s $1.284 billion haul from a decade ago.
The movie now trails only "Frozen 2" on the all-time chart, but it will have to pull off some kind of miracle to overtake that film’s $1.45 billion lifetime global haul.
However, there is still one major record that Super Mario has a realistic chance of breaking. If it continues to screen for just a little while longer, it could actually overtake "Incredibles 2" $608 million lifetime haul to become the biggest animated movie of all time at the domestic box office.
Moreover, "Super Mario" outperformed every Pixar movie ever released, as well as every DreamWorks film, every Blue Sky film, and every Illumination film. To put things in context, it has out-grossed each entry from the far more established "Toy Story", "Shrek", "Despicable Me", "Kung Fu Panda", and "Ice Age" franchises.
In addition to being the highest-grossing movie of the year, "Super Mario" is also the biggest video game adaptation of all time.
Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, the new animated movie received mixed reviews, but successfully managed to attract diverse demographics, including young children and their parents.
The movie landed in theaters in the first week of April, and pretty much dominated that entire month. It was projected to open to around $130 million across the extended five-day holiday weekend but ultimately ended up grossing $204 million domestically.
It topped the weekend box office charts four times in a row and outdid expectations on each of those occasions. It was finally dethroned by "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" in the first week of May but continued to deliver stellar holds for the next few weeks. In fact, it fell by only 33% its last weekend — its eighth — as it added $6.4 million domestically, even though it’s been available digitally for a couple of weeks.
"Super Mario" marks yet another win for Illumination; the animation house has now released three movies that have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, including "Minions" ($1.157 billion) and "Despicable Me 3" ($1.032 billion).
It is also another feather in star Chris Pratt’s hat; he previously led the smash-hit Jurassic World, "The Lego Movie" and "Guardians of the Galaxy" franchises.
"Super Mario" is expected to spawn yet another franchise for Illumination, joining the ranks of "Despicable Me", "Sing", and "The Secret Life of Pets" series.
The movie also features Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, Jack Black, and Fred Armisen.
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