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2023 was one of the best years for cinema in its post-pandemic era, but between blockbuster hits like Barbie and Oppenheimer, the most profitable film was The Super Mario Bros. Movie. According to Deadline’s estimates, The Super Mario Bros Movie was the highest-grossing Illumination movie of all time with its $1.36 billion take at the global box office, and once production, advertising, and several other costs were removed, its final gross was an impressive $559 million.
As Deadline noted, the film’s production cost was $100 million and that fee was split 50-50 between Nintendo and Illumination’s parent company Universal Pictures. Advertising is estimated to have cost $150 million alone, while residuals, distribution expenses, and other vital parts of the movie business saw that overall figure rise to $400 million to make the movie.
Other successful elements of the campaign to drive audiences to watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie included partnership deals with McDonald’s and 7-Eleven, integration in a Nintendo Direct livestream, and several other promotional takeover events.
Universal and Nintendo also cleverly leveraged the appeal of March 10–Mario Day–to sell tickets ahead of the film’s April release. Overall, the film did much better than the infamous live-action Mario Bros. movie–even if it did star Dennis Hopper as a hyper-evolved dinosaur politician–breaking several box office records in the process and finishing the year as the second-highest-grossing movie globally.
A Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel is naturally in development and is currently scheduled to land in theaters on April 3, 2026.
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