UPDATED: The revised projections now have ‘Mario’ opening with $160 million in its first five days. It helps that word of mouth is very strong — an A CinemaScore.
EARLIER: Illumination/Universal/Nintendo’s “The Super Mario Bros Movie” is on track to earn $125 million over its Wednesday through Sunday launch.
The trailer has also nabbed 19 million views on YouTube. However, reviews have been mediocre — 54% on Rotten Tomatoes and 48 on Metacritic. I wouldn’t be surprised if audience scores are much higher.
However, the biggest factor for this potential blockbuster opening is, obviously, sheer and utter nostalgia. You have many people, from different generations, who grew up playing Super Mario games. I’d imagine a demographic of males, anywhere between 13-40 years old, will be flocking to see this movie this week and weekend
Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, the movie stars Chris Pratt as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Jack Black as Bowser, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad and Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike.
I remember when Touchstone Pictures released their live-action “Super Mario Bros” in 1993, with the late Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi, it completely bombed. Grossing only $39M worldwide, it had studios backing away from making any other Mario movie, until now.
Seth Rogen, who stars in this latest movie incarnation of the Nintendo game, called the 1993 version “one of the worst films ever” while doing press for the film.
“The Super Mario Bros Movie” is now in theaters.