The Super Mario Bros movie smashes box office debut records

It’s been widely panned by critics – but it seems audiences can’t get enough of the nostalgia-filled new Super Mario Bros movie.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie – starring Chris Pratt as the voice of Mario – is killing it at the box office.

The new Super Mario Bros Movie has crushed it at the box office, quickly becoming the biggest worldwide debut of the year after raking in $567 million in worldwide ticket sales.

The highly anticipated animated movie – based on the iconic Nintendo game and brought to the big screen by Illumination, Nintendo and Universal – opened in Australia last Thursday, raking in $15 million domestically in just its first five days.

It’sstaggering ticket sales have seen the new Mario adaptation score several records, including best international debut of the year, outstripping Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania with its $339.3 million opening.

It’s also become the biggest global opening weekend ever for an animated film.

Mario and Luigi, voiced by Chris Pratt and Charlie Day.

The story follows Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day), two failing plumbers from Brooklyn who are keen to prove their dad wrong and make successes of their lives.

The pair are sucked through a Bifrost-esque portal to other worlds – Mario to the Mushroom Kingdom and Luigi to the Dark Lands. Mario needs to rescue his baby brother and help save the Mushroom Kingdom from a conquering Bowser (Jack Black) who’s on the rampage in his bid to marry Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy).

Sebastian Maniscalco, Jack Black, Seth Rogen, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Melendandri, CEO of Illumination, Christ Pratt and Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto at the film’s LA premiere. Picture: Amy Sussman/Getty Images

Super Mario Bros. was a particular hit for Imax, bringing in $32.5 million globally in the large-scale cinemas alone.

It may be a box office smash – but critics aren’t exactly raving about Super Mario Bros.

It has just a 56 per cent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, although audiences are wildly more favourable, giving it a whopping 96 per cent.

Originally published as The Super Mario Bros movie smashes box office debut records