A lot of people weren’t sure what to make of The Super Mario Bros. Movie when Chris Pratt was cast as Mario. But it doesn’t look like anybody had any real problem with it, because the movie is an absolute smash. The film had an incredible opening weekend over Easter, which Chris Pratt celebrated by snuggling with a baby goat. You know, like you do.
Pratt took to Instagram to thank everybody for making Super Mario Bros. such a big hit, and to encourage anybody who had not seen the film to do so. He also showed off his own weekend, which included the aforementioned goat, some fishing, and hanging out with family. Check it out.
Chris Pratt certainly looks like he had a great time. It doersn't look like he spent much time worrying about the box office returns. Though if he saw the way things were trending early that may have put him in a very good mood.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie opened to over $200 million in its opening five days and a global opening of $375 million. That number has already jumped to $420 million globally through Tuesday. It set a number of unadjusted box office records, including records for animated films, five-day openings, and movies based on video games. Chris Pratt shared a headline on Instagram that called the movie’s opening the biggest for an animated movie ever, which is true depending on exactly how you parse the numbers.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie also had the biggest opening of any movie in 2023, beating Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's box office opening by a wide margin. And it's already the second highest-grossing movie of the year so far globally. It’s the highest-grossing movie released in 2023 domestically and it hasn’t even been in theaters for a full week. Any way you look at it this was a massive opening and Chris Pratt is clearly feeling good, and thankful, about it.
It must be something of a vindication for Pratt, who has said he understands the way the Super Mario Bros. fans reacted to his casting. There was always the possibility that those fans, if they had decided they really didn’t like Pratt as Mario, could have stayed away, but they showed up, and they did so on opening weekend.
At this point, a Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel would have to be a serious conversation happening at Universal and Illumination Entertainment. The movie teased exactly that through both an end credits sequence and some unresolved plot threads in the first film, so obviously the movie was planning for that possibility. Unless the box office is unusually front-loaded and things completely crash next weekend, which doesn’t seem likely, Mario Bros. is already looking like it will be one of the top movies of the year.
