‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ Becomes 2026’s First Billion-Dollar Blockbuster and It Was Never Really in Doubt
Nintendo and Illumination have made it abundantly clear that Mario is not a one-hit wonder. The Nintendo, Illumination, and Universal partnership has delivered another massive hit with ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,’ which has officially crossed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office. For a franchise built on a pixelated plumber and a princess who keeps getting kidnapped, that is a remarkable and almost routine kind of dominance.
The sequel to ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ opened on April 1 with a $131.7 million domestic debut and settled into a long, steady run across 4,252 theaters, proving that families and gaming fans were going to show up no matter what the competition looked like. Its opening weekend alone pulled in an estimated $372.5 million globally, the biggest box office weekend of 2026, and the momentum never truly let up.
The film crossed the $1 billion milestone during its tenth weekend of release, accumulating $428.5 million domestically and $571.5 million internationally, making it the first film of 2026 to reach that threshold. It is now only the fourth film in Illumination’s history to earn that much, joining ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie,’ ‘Minions,’ and ‘Despicable Me 3.’ Remarkably, the film had already hit the home media market in mid-May on PVOD platforms like Apple and Amazon, yet it still continued to earn meaningful money at the multiplex in the weeks that followed.
The story follows the Mario gang, including Luigi, Yoshi, Bowser, and Princess Peach, on a journey into outer space to save Princess Rosalina from Bowser and his son, Bowser Jr. The expanded cast played a significant part in generating buzz ahead of release. Donald Glover voices Yoshi, Brie Larson voices Rosalina, and Benny Safdie plays Bowser Jr., joining returning cast members Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, and Keegan-Michael Key. Both Glen Powell and Donald Glover reportedly called the studio directly asking to be involved, driven by genuine passion for the Nintendo brand.
Over two films, the Mario movies have now become one of Hollywood’s more lucrative animated franchises, combining for $2.3 billion in global ticket sales and placing ninth among all animated film series worldwide. The franchise currently sits behind only Illumination stablemates and other long-running properties on that all-time list, with Universal, Nintendo, and Illumination already eager to keep the momentum going. All of this was achieved on a reported production budget of just $110 million, making the return on investment almost absurdly impressive by any studio standard.
As of now, ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ ranks as the highest-grossing film of 2026, sitting ahead of Lionsgate’s ‘Michael,’ Amazon MGM Studios’ ‘Project Hail Mary,’ and Disney’s ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2.’ With summer blockbuster season in full swing and major competition still on the horizon, Mario has given every other studio a target that will be genuinely difficult to hit. Whether you grew up with a controller in your hands or simply love a great animated adventure, it is hard to argue with results like these, so let us know if you think any other 2026 release has a real shot at toppling Mario from the top of the box office charts.
