The Super Mario Bros Movie Is The Biggest Video Game Adaptation Ever

It is now official that the Super Mario Bros Movie is the biggest video game adaptation ever as it outranks Warcraft and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. In just a matter of days compared to other video game adaptations, the movie seemed to have done a speedrun, jumped the flag pole and still got the 5000 bonus!

Nintendo finally got it right as it tied up with Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment for the best video game to movie adaptation. Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination’s Chris Meledandri gave the movie that is now considered a love letter to the video game’s fans. People barely hear about the previous concerns as to the casting of Chris Pratt as Mario nowadays.

Indeed, directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and co-directors Pierre Leduc and Fabien Polack proved that their interpretation of Mario through Prat “made total sense”. Last month, we posted about Horvath and Jelenic standing by their decision to cast Pratt where they said:

For us, it made total sense. He’s really good at playing a blue-collar hero with a ton of heart. For the way that Mario is characterized in our film, he’s perfect for it.

Super Mario Bros Movie Speedruns In The Box Office

Variety reports that the plumber brothers’ movie is now the highest-grossing film of 2023 at both the global and domestic box office. It takes the crown off another movie that had family members entering another out-of-this-world realm, Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Based on the aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes, The Super Mario Bros Movie also beat Scott Lang’s movie’s critics and audience score. As of now, it may be only at 58% on the Tomatometer, but still better compared to Ant-Man’s 47%. The audience score shows a 96%, which was even from more than 10,000 verified raters. The Marvel only got 83%.

The critics’ consensus read:

While it’s nowhere near as thrilling as turtle tipping your way to 128 lives, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a colorful — albeit thinly plotted — animated adventure that has about as many Nintendos as Nintendon’ts.

Something quite contrary to what the Audience Says:

Wahoo!

The plumbers saving the Mushroom Kingdom movie will soon close in on Minions: The Rise of Gru, which collected $942.5M through its entire run in theatres. In less than two weeks, Mario portaled in $348M in at the domestic box office with a further $330M coming in from the international market, making its worldwide box office performance worth $678. That was just in 12 days compared to Gru’s entire 67 days.

Absolutely fantastic for a movie that only had $100M for a production budget. Writing credits of The Super Mario Bros Movie go to Matthew Fogel which featured story elements definitive of the video game. The entire premise truly revolved around the game’s story as well. Also showcasing the voices of Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Jack Black as Bowser, Charlie Day as Luigi, the movie will be bound to be a favorite of video gamers and moviegoers alike.

Cast members portraying Mario’s family include Charles Martinet as Mario’s Dad / Giuseppe, Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike, Rino Romano as Uncle Tony, John DiMaggio as Uncle Arthur, and Jessica DiCicco as Mario’s Mom.

Meanwhile, in the Mushroom Kingdom, the movie’s cast includes the likes of Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek, Khary Payton as Penguin King, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Eric Bauza as Toad General, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong.

The Super Mario Bros Movie also honors original Nintendo themes by Koji Kondo with music by Brian Tyler.

Super Mario Bros Movie Could Level Up To Sequels And Spinoffs

Credit: Illumination

For decades, fans have always wondered if The Super Mario Bros Movie would ever get the adaptation that is worthy of its name. Finally, it has arrived from Illumination and Nintendo through Universal Pictures. While there may still be some who aren’t really sold to the idea of a non-Italian plumber, the movie as a whole was exponentially better than the first adaptation tens of years ago.

Many fans even take to social media saying that they enjoyed every moment watching The Super Mario Bros Movie on the big screen. It has been quite a while since moviegoers got a treat and we are happy to learn that a video game adaptation did that this year. In a few months’ time, the Super Mario Bros Movie will be available for streaming and fans get to watch it whenever they wish for many times over.

The Super Mario Brothers Movie is a great way to open the second quarter of 2023 as far as movies are concerned, particularly for video game adaptations to the big screen. What do you make of the Super Mario Bros Movie overperforming at the box office? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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