6 Reasons Why The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Opened HUGE!
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie opened this past weekend to massive box office numbers. The film opened to $190 million for the 5-day weekend and $130 million for the 3-day weekend with a $372.5 million worldwide opening. Despite the movie not getting the best reviews, why did the movie open so big? Let’s talk about it!
- REASON #1: Mario is Multi-Generational: This is the big reason as to why The Super Mario Galaxy Movie opened to massive numbers, Mario as a brand is a multi-generational property that spans decades. The first Mario game came out in September 1985, which is now 41 years ago. So there’s a generation of people that grew up playing the games in the ‘80s and ‘90s that now have children that are the prime audience to enjoy these movies. But it’s not just that, there’s multiple video games out that have been released over the decades that have brought new fans into the world of Mario. Even somebody that was born in 1995, 10 years after Mario launched there was probably a new video game that released in the early 2000s that got them on board with Mario. Even then, modern day children have new Mario games that they play and get them excited about the world of Mario. We got a new Mario Kart game just a few years back, with the Nintendo Switch we got several new Mario games. There’s constantly new Mario video games that are coming out to get fans and people excited about this movie. Mario truly is this multi-generational IP that’s lasted decades because it’s filled with characters and lore that people enjoy, and it’s also just filled with fun games to enjoy whether that’s the mini games or Mario Kart itself that is a mainstay in popular culture.
- REASON #2: Illumination Attracts Younger Audiences: Illumination is such an interesting studio because the vast majority of adults don’t love these movies. They’re a bit too kiddy and don’t have enough of a hook to get older audiences the same way that Pixar does. But every single Illumination is wildly profitable. They’re lowest grossing film is Hop, which only made $188 million, but it was made for $63 million so it made 3x its production budget. That is Illumination “underperforming” only making 3x times its budget. Despicable Me 2, The Secret Life of Pets, Minions: The Rise of Gru, and Despicable Me 4 all made over $850 million. Minions, Despicable Me 3, and The Super Mario Bros Movie all made over $1 billion. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a lock to make $1 billion by the end of the month. They know their target audience and what makes their target audience love their films. They know that the kids love cute creatures (the Minions and Yoshi), they have bright and colorful animation, and they include pop songs. All of the stuff that’s easy for adults or older audiences to get annoyed by is exactly what younger audiences love about their films. Unadjusted for inflation, the Pixar films that released in their hot streak weren’t doing these numbers. The Incredibles made $630 million. All of those Pixar films averaged about $500-$700 million, which isn’t bad but it’s not as much as these Illumination films are despite those Pixar being much better regarded.
- REASON #3: Audiences Loved The Super Mario Bros. Movie: The Super Mario Bros Movie from just a few years back was beloved by audiences. The critic score on Rotten Tomatoes isn’t great. It’s not bad either, it’s at 59%. So it’s still rotten but only by one percent. The audience score for that film is at 95%. So there’s a good size divide between critics and audiences regarding that film. But since audiences loved the movie they were excited to get a sequel and they went opening weekend to go see this movie because they loved the original so much. Because that original was such a crowd pleaser that audiences loved, it made them want to get a similar experience watching this film and discover even more easter eggs and cameos compared to the first. We’ll talk about this a minute but there’s been this toxic discourse surrounding the film these last several days and the big reason for that is because audiences love these movies and don’t get why critics don’t. The mega Mario fans that have played every video game and know the lore like the back of their hand ate this movie up because it’s designed for the fans and be this crowd pleaser. I work at a movie theater and I worked two days this past weekend cleaning the theaters. That means that I’ve watched the end credit scene for this movie multiple times despite having only seen the movie one time. Every single time that cameo appears in the end credit scene the audience starts clapping and cheering. I didn’t fully realize just how much of a crowd pleaser these Mario films were going to be for audiences.
- REASON #4: Discourse Drew in Crowds: I just touched on this but The Super Mario Galaxy Movie discourse has been very strange. There’s a big divide between what critics thought about the film and what audiences thought about the film. Critics were not too pleased with the film, they gave it a 41% while audiences gave it an 89%. Right there, there’s a fairly big divide in what critics and audiences thought, much like the original. I think because there’s so much controversy and talk happening about this movie, people want to go see and make up their mind on their own. I think that’s why Scream 7 opened so big at the end of February. There was so much conversation surrounding that film and the controversy surrounding who they fired and who they brought back that it acted as marketing for the film and got people to show up. I think you compare that to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and they see the division between the online conversations and want to go see the movie so they can make up their own mind about the film.
- REASON #5: Unexplored Territory: One of the things that I think has helped both this film and the 2023 film make dump trucks of money is because the world of Mario hasn’t been explored much in movies. We’ve gotten countless video games over the years. But this is only the third theatrically released Mario movie we’ve gotten in 30+ years. While Mario is a brand and IP that everybody is familiar with, we’re not familiar with it in movie form. Because there’s very few Mario movies, it means that this is the first time that we’ve done a galaxy movie. That right there is exciting for Mario fans because it’s translating this beloved video game into a movie and we haven’t seen that before.
- REASON #6: Fear of Missing Out: I think this movie’s box office was also helped by a sense of FOMO, fear of missing out. There’s so many easter eggs and cameos that people wanted to see before they got spoiled. In the similar (yet different) way it’s partly why Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home had big gigantic openings, there was this sense of fomo. You didn’t want to have anything spoiled for you, so you’d go opening weekend to experience it yourself. I think this movie had a similar vibe of they didn’t want the end credit scene cameo spoiled for them or any of the other fun cameos and surprises in the film. You wanted to be a part of the water cooler talk on Monday with everybody talking about the movie and how much fun they had. In order to be a part of those conversations people rushed opening weekend to go see this movie. It’s amplified by the fact that there’s social media out there with idiots that don’t mind spoiling the movie for others with recording the screen and posting it on the internet.
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