The Super Mario Bros. Movie has set box office records in Japan

You might be tired of hearing about how successful The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been in the US box office, as the Illumination/Nintendo film already had the biggest opening ever for an animated film, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that The Super Mario Bros. has set box office records in Japan, Nintendo’s homeland, as well. And multiple ones at that.

According to 4Gamer.net, The Super Mario Bros. Movie earned approximately $13.5 million (yen to USD conversion) during its opening weekend and as of Monday made about $16 million, which makes it the best opening weekend for an Illumination in Japan ever. The previous highest-grossing movies by Illumination in Japan were Despicable Me 3 (a little over $5 million) and The Secret Life of Pets (nearly $7 million). The Super Mario Bros. Movie also secured the best opening weekend earnings in Japan for Universal, beating out Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($11 million).

Also, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the fastest-selling movie for Universal in Japan, reaching 2 billion yen faster than any previous Universal release.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie/Illumination

Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed that the Japanese version of The Super Mario Bros. Movie would have a different script than the US version. Illumination also waited to release the film during Golden Week in Japan, which is a week-long national holiday where people in the country celebrate a number of public holidays in sequence starting with Showa Day, which is followed by Constitution Memorial Day, Greenery Day and finally Children’s Day. Both of these factors look to have contributed to the fact that The Super Mario Bros. Movie has set box office records in Japan.

According to the latest figures from BoxOfficeMojo, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has crossed the billion dollar earnings threshold worldwide, with a total of $1,044,952,259. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the highest-earning film of 2023 thus far.

Are you surprised with The Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s blazing success thus far? Are you surprised that The Super Mario Bros. Movie has set box office records in Japan as well as the US and is already the highest-grossing film of 2023? Let us know in the comments.