Barbie flies past The Super Mario Bros. Movie and becomes the highest-grossing film for 2023 in North America
- Barbie has now grossed $575.4 million in North America
- It surpassed Mario’s impressive $574 million domestic haul this week
- The Margot Robbie comedy is also on course to beat Mario’s $1.35 billion worldwide revenue
Barbie has reached another milestone, becoming the highest-grossing film in North America to date.
The comedy starring Margot Robbie currently grosses around $575.4 million, just passing the $574 million domestic gross of The Super Mario Bros. Movie is coming, according Variety.
The news of the Greta Gerwig-directed film’s smash success comes after the worldwide box office had already passed the $1 billion mark.
The movie will have a chance to make even more money after Warner Bros. Wednesday announced that Barbie will have the opportunity to play in IMAX theaters across North America for a week, with additional post-credits footage added.
The year’s highest global grosses are also within reach, as the Super Mario Bros. film has only made slightly more than Barbie in other international markets.
Top of the pack: Barbie has hit another milestone, becoming the highest-grossing film in North America to date
Passed: The comedy starring Margot Robbie currently grosses around $575.4 million, just passing the $574 million domestic gross of The Super Mario Bros. Movie coming
To date, Barbie has earned approximately $1.3 billion in all markets around the world, with Mario leading the way with $1.35 billion.
The puppet-inspired film, which stars Ryan Gosling as Ken in a critically acclaimed performance, is also expected to steal Mario’s global top spot soon.
Variety notes that the two films are the only films of the year to date to gross more than $1 billion worldwide.
More surprisingly, neither movie is a superhero movie, as are four of the top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time, according to Box Office Mojo.
Marvel movies can claim all four of these mega-popular movies, with Avengers: Endgame ($2.8 billion) being the second-highest-grossing movie ever after Avatar, while Avengers: Infinity War ($2 billion) is number six, Spider-Man : No Way Home ($1.9 billion) is number seven and The Avengers ($1.5 billion) is number 10 on the list.
Avengers: Age Of Ultron and Black Panther have also earned more globally than Barbie so far, though it will likely pass both.
The huge success of Barbie and Mario is also surprising because neither movie is a sequel.
Studios have largely eschewed original films in favor of IP-focused franchises and “cinematic universes” in recent years, meaning many of the highest-grossing films of late have been sequels to previous blockbusters.
Heading to the future: Barbie currently has $1.3 billion in worldwide box office, and is expected to soon surpass the $1.3 billion worldwide gross of The Super Mario Bros. surpass movie
Change of pace: Only The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Barbie will surpass $1 billion globally by 2023. It’s a change from years past, when movies that crossed that line mostly featured superheroes
Both Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, however, benefited from being characters familiar to the public, even though they are not direct sequels to previous films.
Numerous direct-to-video movies and shows about Barbie have previously been released — which were primarily aimed at children, unlike the age-friendly Barbie movie — and Mario previously appeared on the big screen in the critically-maligned live-action movie Super 1993’s Mario Bros., starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper.
Barbie has broken a series of records since its debut in July during the so-called ‘Barbenheimer’ weekend, when it competed against Christopher Nolan’s second-place biographical drama Oppenheimer and has become one of the most successful films of the year thanks to the similar movie. impressive staying power.