The Super Mario Bros Movie smashes box office records despite poor reviews

Film had the best opening weekend for an animated film of all time

The Super Mario Bros Movie has defied expecations and smashed box office records in its opening weekend.

The animated film, adapted from the best-selling Nintendo video game franchise and starring Chris Pratt, Charlie Day and Anya Taylor-Joy, was released in cinemas last week.

On Sunday (9 April), it was reported that The Super Mario Bros took $377m (£304.6m) around the world since it opened on Wednesday (5 April).

This marks the best opening weekend for both an animated film (a record previously held by Frozen 2 at $358m (£289m)) and video game adaptations (formerly held by Warcraft at $210m (£169.6m)).

The Mario film has also had the biggest opening of any film in 2023. In the US alone, the Mario film took $204.6m (£165.3m) in its first five days.

The Super Mario Bros Movie’s success comes in the face of generally negative critical response to the animated film.

In a two-star review, The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey said that the movie was an adventure in “comfortable mediocrity”.

“It’s hard to demand all that much from a Mario Bros film when its source material has been historically devoid of plot, but shouldn’t we be allowed to demand a little more than mere competency?” she wrote.

‘The Super Mario Bros Movie’ (© 2023 Nintendo and Universal Studios)

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, The Super Mario Bros Movie has a critics’ score of just 56 per cent positive, marking it as “Rotten”.

However, it has a score of 96 per cent among audience reviewers.

Last week, Elon Musk hit out at “disconnected” critics over their negative reviews of the film.

The Super Mario Bros Movie is in cinemas now.

Additional reporting by Associated Press