The new animated “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” coming from Illumination, Universal, and Nintendo, is projected to make between at least $85 million and $90 million over its five-day opening Easter weekend release, according to Deadline. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” comes from animation company Illumination, which has already seen box office success with movies like “Despicable Me,” “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” and “Sing 2.”
The animated film is expected to exceed initial projections. The movie is projected to do well with boys and girls under 12, families, and the male game sect under the age of 25. These projections are expected to overtake statistics for “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” which was released in April 2022 and garnered $71 million in domestic ticket sales, according to Screen Rant. It set the record for the best opening weekend for a video game movie, and became the fourth-highest-international-grossing animated movie based on a video game of all time, according to Screen Rant.
The movie was directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, who co-developed the animated series “Teen Titans Go!,” and features a star-studded cast. According to Deadline, Chris Pratt stars as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya-Taylor Joy as Princess Peach, Jack Black as Bowser, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike. The animated movie will be set in the Super Mario video game universe.
Touchstone Pictures produced a live-action version of “Super Mario Bros” in 1993, starring Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi, according to Deadline. In this universe, Mario and Luigi are plumbers from Brooklyn who enter a parallel world ruled by the intelligent descendants of dinosaurs planning to take over Earth. However, the film bombed, costing nearly $50 million in production and only grossing $39 million worldwide.
Asia London Palomba
Asia London Palomba is a trilingual freelance journalist from Rome, Italy. In the past, her work on culture, travel, and history has been published in The Boston Globe, Atlas Obscura, The Christian Science Monitor, and Grub Street, New York Magazine's food section. In her free time, Asia enjoys traveling home to Italy to spend time with family and friends, drinking Hugo Spritzes, and making her nonna's homemade cavatelli.