Mario can truly say “Wahoo!” in his home country with The Super Mario Bros. Movie having one of the best openings in Japan of all-time for an Illumination-produced flick in the country as well as the 11th highest-grossing opening in Japan of all-time for a three day weekend.
According to Oricon, The Super Mario Bros. Movie made 1.843 billion yen (US$13.10 million) on the back of 1.27 million tickets sold. This is the biggest opening ever for an Illumination film, 245.3% more than Despicable Me, which is currently the highest-grossing Illumination film in Japan. Mario is also the 9th biggest opening for an animated film in Japan and the biggest non-anime animated opening since Frozen 2.
Worldwide, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has made US$1.026 billion, the first film to make US$1 billion in the 2023 calendar year and the fifth film since COVID-19 began.
RELATED: The Super Mario Bros. Movie to Pass US$1 Billion at the Global Box Office This Weekend
The Lego Movie 2 story writer Matthew Fogel wrote the screenplay for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, with Teen Titan’s Go! To the Movies‘ Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic co-directing. Shigeru Miyamoto and Chris Meledandri at Illumination produced the film for Universal Pictures distribution.
Source: Oricon
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Daryl Harding is a Senior Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.