Welcome to the club, Mario.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie has passed $1 billion at the worldwide box office, becoming the first film released in 2023 to do so.
Mario is now just the fifth movie, and first animated film, since before the COVID-19 pandemic to gross $1 billion worldwide after Avatar: The Way of Water, Jurassic World Dominion, Top Gun: Maverick, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. It is among the most successful animated films in history and only the third not released by Disney to gross $1 billion after 2015's Minions and 2017's Despicable Me 3. The record for highest-grossing animated film of all time worldwide is currently held by Frozen II with $1.45 billion, though if Disney's 2019 live-action style remake of The Lion King is considered an animated movie, that tops the list with $1.66 billion. The other animated films to gross $1 billion are Zootopia, Finding Dory, Toy Story 3, Toy Story 4, Incredibles 2, and Frozen.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been smashing records since its opening weekend after having the biggest global debut for an animated film of all time, surpassing Frozen II. It's also easily the highest-grossing film ever based on a video game and the first video game movie to gross $1 billion.
For box office analysts, the million-dollar question is now whether any film will be as big of a hit as Mario for the rest of the year. Some upcoming contenders to join the $1 billion club include Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Fast X, The Little Mermaid, The Marvels, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
But it's possible that even after all these movies come and go, Mario will still hold the crown as the highest-grossing film of 2023, which would mark the first time the year's biggest movie worldwide was animated since 2013 with Frozen. Move over, Marvel, Tom Cruise, and Elsa. The age of Bowser's box office dominance has arrived.