Mario Helped Break Disney’s 7-Year Box Office Streak

For the first time since 2015, Disney wasn’t at the top of 2023’s global box office. And while there are a few different factors and reasons for the Mickey Mouse empire slipping from first to second, a significant reason for the shift is because of the super-successful Super Mario animated film.

2023’s animated Super Mario Bros. Movie might not be the best film ever made, but that didn’t stop it from racking up a huge $1.36 billion at the global box office. That’s a lot of money, but to put it in perspective, Disney’s highest-grossest film in 2023 was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 with “only” $845 million. For most of Hollywood that amount would be worth celebrating, but for Disney—with expensive films that cost $200 million or more to make— it was the one real bright spot in a slate of pricey sequels and reboots that otherwise underperformed or just outright flopped. Some big stinkers included The Marvels, the latest Indiana Jones film, and the animated misfire Wish.

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Of course, Disney didn’t burn out entirely. The company was still second and right behind Universal with $4.827 billion. And both were far ahead of Warner Bros., Paramount, and Sony. None of those Hollywood giants cracked $4 billion in total.

So sure, Disney still made money and was still one of the biggest studios in the industry. But not that long ago Disney could pump out three Marvel flicks a year and a handful of animated movies and bank on all of them doing close to or more than a billion globally.

Now, it seems a combination of franchise fatigue, internal shake-ups, oversaturation, and stiff competition has reminded everyone—and possibly some execs at Disney—that nobody stays on top forever. Giants all fall, eventually. Mario would know. He’s taken down plenty of big enemies in his career.

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