We already know that the Super Mario Bros. Movie is the biggest video game film of all time but it seems the animated hit still hasn't finished breaking records – this weekend, it's thought the movie will cross $1 billion, making it one of just 10 animated movies to have done so. Ever.
That's right: if The Hollywood Reporter's projections are correct, Nintendo's hugely-successful movie adaptation is expected to gross $37.5 million in the US over the weekend.
Coupled with the $69 million the movie is projected to earn overseas, the overall global total will hit $1.02 billion.
That means Super Mario Bros. Movie joins a very select group of animated films that have broken the billion-dollar ceiling.
"Bringing the world’s most recognizable video-game characters back to the big screen is an intimidating task, especially when the failure of their last cine-venture still looms large," we wrote in GamesRadar+'s The Super Mario Bros. Movie review, for which we awarded the film three out of five stars.
"But Illumination and Nintendo's big animated gamble The Super Mario Bros. Movie mostly sticks the landing. A fun, fast-paced take on the plumber siblings, it’s a far cry from 1993’s much-derided live-action Super Mario Bros."
Talking of that live-action movie; Seth Rogen, who voices Donkey Kong in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, has revealed his feelings towards the original Super Mario Bros. movie from 1993.
"When I was 11, I saw the original Mario Bros. movie and I was so excited," Rogen said of the live-action adaptation, starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi respectively. "But it’s one of the worst films ever made. I was so disappointed. I think it made me realize that movies could be bad. That never occurred to me until that moment."
The original Super Mario Bros movie was a critical and commercial failure, grossing only $38.9 million at the box office from a reported $42 million budget. It currently sits at 29 per cent on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
Here's our roundup of all the upcoming video game movies.
