Someone call a warp pipe, because Mario is speedrunning his way through box office records. According to TheGamer, the Super Mario Galaxy movie has now overtaken the Minecraft movie to become the second highest-grossing video game movie of all time.
The film is sitting just a few million dollars shy of the $1 billion threshold - which, in gaming terms, is basically standing at the final boss door with one hit point left. The tension is absolutely unhinged.
One-up mushroom, activated
To put this in perspective, the Minecraft movie was no small fry. That blocky little passion project did serious numbers, and Mario just casually walked up, grabbed the star, and yeeted it into second place. Cold-blooded behaviour from Nintendo's flagship plumber.
The only video game movie still sitting above Mario in the all-time rankings is, well, the previous Mario movie - the 2023 animated film that basically broke the internet and reminded everyone that yes, video game movies can actually be good. So the franchise is essentially dunking on itself at this point, which is the most Nintendo thing imaginable.
Is $1 billion the final flag pole?
With just a few million left to go, the $1 billion milestone is basically a formality at this point - it's like watching someone collect the last few coins in a level they've already cleared. The question now is whether the Galaxy movie has enough momentum to start chasing down its predecessor's record, or whether it plateaus here and waits for a sequel announcement to reignite the hype.
Either way, this is a massive win for Nintendo, for animated video game adaptations, and frankly for all of us who spent years enduring the "video game movies are cursed" discourse. The genre has officially respawned with full health, a max combo, and apparently, a very healthy marketing budget.
The leaderboard is updating in real time - stay tuned.
