Super Mario Bros; breaking box office records and early Oscar discussion, despite critics lukewarm response

It’s becoming a bit of a trend for film fans as of late; a critical mauling of a film and yet public interest has superseded what some reviewers think of a movie. In this instance, it’s the release of Illumination’s latest animated adventure, The Super Mario Bros Movie, based on Nintendo’s iconic Italian plumber mascot, Mario - voiced in this instance by Chris Pratt. 

It was always set to be a daunting adaptation, after the less-than-stellar attempt at a live action Mario film in the ‘90s starring John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins. That film has gone on to live in infamy as one of the worst films ever made, let alone one of the worst video game adaptations to make the big screen (which is an even longer list, trust us). It even led to the late Hoskins admitting to The Guardian in 2007 that “The worst thing I ever did? Super Mario Brothers. It was a f****ing nightmare. The whole experience was a nightmare. It had a husband-and-wife team directing, whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent. After so many weeks their own agent told them to get off the set! F***king nightmare. F****ing idiots.”

The casting of Chris Pratt as the hero of the piece, Mario, also elicited poor responses from the online fandom, which can be broken into two different groups; firstly, the group that would have loved to see Mario’s original voice, Charles Martinet, transition from the video game to the cinema. The second group are those who have grown tired of Pratt’s “everyman” persona with constant barbs thrown towards the former internet favourite, be it because of his religious beliefs, his treatment of former wife Anna Faris and his gushing public declarations of love towards his new partner, Katherine Schwarzenegger, or because people realised he wasn’t actually like Andy Dwyer from Parks and Recreation. A fine example of the internet sometimes engaging in a parasocial relationship with the celebrities we sometimes admire. 

But aptly helmed by the team that brought us the successful Minions and Despicable Me franchise, despite the critics lukewarm reviews regarding the film (it currently sits on 54% on Rotten Tomatoes,) not only has Super Mario Bros punched well above its weight with the court of public opinion, but we are also hearing Oscar discussions this early on, by virtue of Jack Black.

In its opening weekend, The Super Mario Bros Movie earned $375.6m USD globally, eclipsing the second biggest opening in 2023 Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania which earned $225.3m USD globally upon its release earlier this year. What’s more, it is the biggest opening box office for an animated film of all time, beating previous holder Frozen II which opened to $358 million USD when it came out in 2019. In contrast, the live action original from 1993 earned a box office of $40.1m USD upon release, and we’ve even gone as far as to adjust that for inflation.

But on top of breaking box office records comes the news that one of the songs from the film is actually eligible for consideration at the next Academy Award ceremony as speculation mounts if we’ll see Jack Black get his flowers from the Academy next year. 

“Peaches,” a song in which the character Bowser professes his love for one Princess Peach, was written by Jack Black and debuted on, of all platforms, hip-hop YouTube channel Lyric Lemonade, more notable for releasing music videos for Eminem and the late Juice WRLD. The idea of having a song by Bowser was Jack Black's idea, releasing a final recording of the song a few days after he was sent the demo. 

Under the guidelines for a Best Original Song to be included under consideration for an Academy Award, "an original song consists of words and music, both of which are original and written specifically for the motion picture. There must be a clearly audible, intelligible, substantive rendition (not necessarily visually presented) of both lyric and melody, used in the body of the motion picture or as the first music cue in the end credits.”

Which, given the cut-off period for Oscar considerations has yet to arrive, coupled with the critical praise the song has received from music reviewers (one of the few bright spots Illumination and Universal can count on regarding it’s critical evaluation), means that we could indeed see Jack Black receiving a long overdue Oscar nod for his musical achievements - something we are sure Tenacious D might not be fussed about.

But Jack Black the actor, who has yet to ever receive an Oscar nomination throughout his prolific career, might have a different take on the matter compared to his Tenacious D alter-ego.