While The Super Mario Galaxy Movie may not have seen much praise from critics, with a Metacritic score of 37 and a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 43 percent, the movie has still ended up being incredibly successful. According to IMDbPro’s Box Office Mojo, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has become the highest-grossing movie released in 2026. This is thanks to it having made $756 million across all territories.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie made $361 million in total gross revenue from the US and Canada, and almost $50 million in Mexico. The result of the world contributed to the remaining roughly 50 percent of the film’s global revenue. It is also worth keeping in mind that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hasn’t yet made its theatrical debut in Japan, so no box office figures from the country have been counted.
As for what the critics have had to say, the producer of the film and creator of Mario, Shigeru Miyamoto, was asked about it by Famitsu. He responded by expressing disappointment and noted that “it’s very strange that the people who are supposed to be revitalizing the film industry have been so negative.”
“To be honest, I thought there was some truth to the opinions of the critics on the previous film,” he said. “However, I thought this time would be different, but it’s even harsher than last time. I’ve come in from another genre and am working hard to liven up the film industry, so it’s very strange that the people who are supposed to be revitalizing the film industry have been so negative.”
The impressive box office performance of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie should come as no surprise, as the film had started making incredible amounts of money right from its opening day. According to a report from earlier this month, it managed to make $34 million on day one, beating even the $31.7 million made by The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
As for what might be in the future of Nintendo’s film adaptation aspirations for its properties, Miyamoto and Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri have said that there aren’t really any large plans for overarching stories that would eventually lead to a movie adaptation of something like Super Smash Bros.
“Right off the bat, I’ll say that unlike something like Super Smash Bros., I don’t think you’ll have a situation [where] all Nintendo characters would be joining,” said Miyamoto. “As you know, my rule is that Pikmin can appear in any [Nintendo] series.”
“We have plenty of characters to create a movie, and yet we wanted to add a little bit of spice, a little bit of secret cameos here and there. And you’ll see that there’s one secret character that plays a big role,” he continued. “So I think there might be introductions of characters like this potentially in the future, something like that.”
Illumination is similarly not considering a “bigger picture” when it comes to planning out its movies. As such, there aren’t really any plans for a “Nintendo Cinematic Universe,” at least for now.
