This past weekend saw the opening of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie in over 80 countries globally, including essential movie markets like North America and Europe. In its first five days from Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it brought in $372.5 million, an absolutely whopping figure that only partially falls behind the original The Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s $387.8 million opening.
The domestic (U.S. and Canada) opening is down from the first movie’s $204.6 million, with Galaxy opening to $190 million in the same key markets. However, the international markets actually secured a higher share of the box office this time around with $182.4 million for Galaxy as compared to the Mario Bros. approximately $172.4 million in the same overseas nations.
Despite the slight dip in box office earnings, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is still an enormous success, and breaking records too. It becomes the biggest global opening of 2026’s box office thus far, and also makes the Mario movie franchise the only one to have two movies over $350 million globally. It’s the second-biggest gaming adaptation and Illumination opening, only behind the original Mario Bros. Movie, and the fifth biggest global opening for an animated movie ever.
With the production budget being $110 million, it’s an overwhelming win for Illumination and Nintendo, even if it failed to level up from the heights of the previous movie. It’s a common rule of thumb (not a real science!) to estimate that a movie will break even and become profit once it hits 2.5x its production budget, which then includes factors like distribution deals, marketing and other associated costs. In the case of the Mario Galaxy Movie, that’d put $275 million at the point from which the movie becomes pure profit. Regardless, Illumination and Nintendo are raking in the cash, especially if we consider tie-in merch like the Yoshi popcorn buckets.
As for why this movie opened below Mario Bros., we don’t have an exact reasoning but we can guess. The Rotten Tomatoes score which combines reviews from critics to create an average score is even worse for the Mario Galaxy Movie at 42% than it was for the Mario Bros. Movie with 59%. Audience scores are also down on Rotten Tomatoes, from 95% for the original to 89% for the sequel.
We’re interested to see how The Super Mario Galaxy Movie performs at next week’s box office, and whether a solid hold will push it closer to breaking $1 billion globally or if lesser word of mouth might make the movie start to flounder. Regardless, as long as it’s making money, we’re sure there’s still a future for Mario at the movies.
