The Super Mario Bros. Movie grosses 1.8 billion Yen during opening week-end in Japan and breaks several records

2 May 20232 May 2023 Lite_Agent Illumination, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, TOHO, Universal

To say that the Super Mario Bros. Movie is a success would be quite the understatement. With over $1 billion in sales worldwide, and $490.85 million just in the United States and Canada, Nintendo and Illumination’s co-production just keeps on smashing boxing office records. And in Japan too, the movie is enjoying great popularity.

According to a press release sent by Toho (who distributes the movie in Japan), the movie grossed over 1.84 billion Yen (1,842,783,160 Yen to be precise, so about $13.5 million) during its opening week-end (Friday to Sunday). It was the #1 movie during that week-end, which saw fierce competition (including the latest movie from the Case Closed / Detective Conan series).

The Super Mario Bros. Movie then went on to gross an additional 339,586,180 Yen ($2,477,723) on Monday, bringing total sales to 2,182,490,230 Yen (nearly $16 million).

The first record the movie broke in Japan concerns Illumination. Unsurprisingly, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the best opening ever for an Illumination movie in Japan, doing better than Despicable Me 3 (751 million Yen/$5.4 million over Friday-Sunday) and The Secret Life of Pets (984 million Yen/$7.1 million over Thursday-Sunday, including a public holiday).

The second record the movie broke in Japan concerns Universal. The Super Mario Bros. Movie saw the best week-end performance ever for Universal, outperforming Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom with 1.51 billion Yen/$11 million over Friday-Sunday.

The third record: the movie is now the fastest-selling movie for Universal with over 1 billion Yen grossed after just two days. It did better than Jurassic World: Dominion and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom who did it after 3 days. And if that wasn’t enough, the Super Mario Bros. Movie also reached the 2 billion Yen mark faster than any other movie from Universal, outclassing Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (that reached that milestone after 4 days).

Toho’s press release also mentions that the movie is enjoying great word of mouth, with many theatres selling out and already many repeat viewers. With the Golden Week now in full swing, it’s pretty safe to say that sales will remain strong in the upcoming days (maybe with a few more records to break?).

Source: Toho PR (via 4Gamer)