The Super Mario Bros. Movie

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a 2023 American computer-animated adventure comedy film based on Nintendo’s Mario video game franchise, produced by Illumination and Nintendo and released worldwide by Universal Pictures.¹⁵ It was directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic from a screenplay by Matthew Fogel, and produced by Illumination founder and chief executive Chris Meledandri and by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo.¹⁵ The film follows two Brooklyn plumbers, brothers Mario and Luigi, who are transported through a pipe into a magical world and, after being separated, become caught up in a war between the Mushroom Kingdom and the forces of the Koopa king Bowser.³¹⁶ With a running time of about 92 minutes, it was rated PG and classified as an animation, adventure and comedy.³¹⁶

Plot and characters

Mario and Luigi are Italian-American plumbers based in Brooklyn who set out to launch their own plumbing business, complete with a television commercial in which they speak in fake Italian accents.⁶⁸ While working underground to fix a water-main break, they are sucked down a mysterious pipe into an alternate universe; Mario lands in the Mushroom Kingdom while Luigi is dropped into the Dark Lands, described as a “Tim Burton nightworld of gnarled trees and creepy chattering skeletons”.³⁸ With the help of the Mushroom Kingdom resident Toad and training from its ruler, Princess Peach, Mario embarks on a quest to rescue his captured brother.³¹⁶

Princess Peach, recast for the film as an action figure rather than the franchise’s habitual damsel-in-distress, acts as Mario’s guide, mentor and love interest; she is said to have lived in the Mushroom Kingdom since infancy and to have been raised by the Toad population.⁶⁹ Bowser, King of the Koopas and ruler of the Dark Lands, steals the powerful Super Star in an attempt to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom, with an intended marriage to Princess Peach at the heart of his scheme.⁶¹³ He commands a vast army of Koopa Troopas and Goombas and a fleet of flying pirate ships.⁹

The film weaves together elements drawn from multiple Nintendo games, including Donkey Kong, Mario Kart and Super Mario 3D World, with set pieces such as a girder duel against Donkey Kong and a Rainbow Road go-kart race.⁸¹³ Several sequences were designed to mimic the side-scrolling platforming of the original game.¹⁷ The British Board of Film Classification noted action sequences emphasising slapstick and excitement, fantastical action threat including chases and a floating island fortress, a villain having a piano lid slammed on his hands, and a sequence in which a character is pursued by skeleton creatures.²

Voice cast

Chris Pratt leads the cast as Mario, with Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong.⁶¹⁵ Fred Armisen voices Cranky Kong, Kevin Michael Richardson voices the wizard-Koopa Kamek, and Sebastian Maniscalco voices Spike, a character drawn from the NES and arcade game Wrecking Crew.⁷¹⁰¹⁵ Charles Martinet, the longtime voice of Mario in the games, was given a series of featured cameos.⁷¹⁰ Voice actor Jessica DiCicco played multiple roles in the film.¹²

The casting was announced during a Nintendo Direct presentation in September 2021, the first public unveiling of Universal’s adaptation.⁷¹⁰ Pratt later described his apprehension at being offered the role, saying he thought “let’s not screw this up” given how passionate fans are about the character, and observing that “it’s kind of a cynical business” in which people make films simply because a title has reach.⁶ Reports later emerged that Pratt’s original Mario voice was conceived as closer to Tony Soprano before being rejected.¹⁷

Production and music

The project was originally announced in 2018, with Meledandri and Miyamoto attached as producers.⁷¹⁰ Horvath and Jelenic had previously collaborated on Teen Titans Go! and Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, while Fogel had written The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part and Minions: The Rise of Gru.¹⁵ The film was made with digital animation as a United States–Japan co-production by Universal Pictures, Nintendo and Illumination Entertainment, with filming-stage work attributed to France and a portion of the work handled by Illumination’s Paris division.³¹⁷

The score was composed by Brian Tyler, with Koji Kondo, the composer of the games’ music, also attached.¹ A theatrical trailer theme, an epic reworking of a classic Mario tune intended to convey the scale of the project, was created by the composing team Black Hydra, founded by Ben Hayden and James Murray, and released to their YouTube channel in December 2022.¹ Black Hydra had previously contributed advertising music for projects including Black Adam, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Batman and Top Gun: Maverick.¹ The official trailer, released in November 2022, drew more than 36 million views.¹⁵

Release and box office

The Super Mario Bros. Movie was made on a production budget of about $100 million.³¹¹ It was originally scheduled to reach theaters on December 21, 2022, but opened in the United States on April 5, 2023 across 4,343 theaters, including in IMAX, with international releases beginning April 4.³¹⁰ The film grossed $146,361,865 in its domestic opening weekend, which represented 25.5 percent of its total domestic gross, and reported a $31.7 million opening day.³¹¹ On the same Wednesday it overshadowed Ben Affleck’s sports drama Air, which opened to $3.2 million.¹¹

It earned $574,934,330 domestically and $784,291,945 internationally for a worldwide total of $1,359,226,275, more than 13 times its production budget.³ Strong international markets included Japan ($101,918,067), Mexico ($85,378,425) and the United Kingdom ($67,934,434), with further large grosses in France ($62,851,536) and Germany ($56,650,382).⁴ A home video release followed on May 16, 2023, with estimated DVD and Blu-ray sales totalling about $29.4 million.³

Reception and aftermath

The film carried an MPA rating of PG for action and mild violence and a UK classification of “mild violence, threat”.²³ Reviews were mixed to positive: Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman praised it as “sheer animated fun” and “the rare video-game movie that gives you a prankish video-game buzz,” singling out Jack Black’s Bowser as a “stupendous performance” and likening the film’s “rollicking aesthetic of transmutation” to Yellow Submarine.⁸ The UCSD Guardian was more critical, finding the animation among Illumination’s best but the underlying story “half-baked” and riddled with plot holes, while still crediting Black as the film’s “clear choice” and redeeming quality.¹⁷ Common Sense Media judged it suitable for ages seven and up, noting it was “a bit more violent than the games” and flagging cartoon violence, scares and bullying language.¹³ On Apple TV’s aggregated tally the film stood at 59 percent fresh across 292 reviews.¹⁴

Both critics and marketing repeatedly contrasted the film with the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros., starring Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi, which was a critical and commercial failure that later gained a cult following as a “’90s artifact”.⁷¹⁰ Gleiberman framed his review around the idea that the “second time’s the charm for Mario on film”.⁸

A sequel, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, was announced as an animated film based on the same world, with Horvath, Jelenic, Fogel and Tyler all returning and Meledandri and Miyamoto again producing.¹⁹²¹ Following the 2023 film’s gross of more than $1.3 billion worldwide, the sequel was scheduled for theatrical release worldwide beginning early April 2026.²⁰²¹