Why the Super Mario Bros animated film broke box office records and the 1993 movie failed

While streamers typically make do with frugal marketing budgets and largely push content on their menus, most movie studios, like Universal, still have all the superpowers in the world to blast a movie out of cannon.

But here’s something to consider as we cover Universal’s promo playbook below in Illumination/Nintendo’s Drive Movie Super Mario Bros to multiple opening records ($377M WW, $204.6M 3D): IP and marketing machinery alone won’t take a film to major box offices.

The movie has to be great too. As subjective and simple as it sounds when it comes to the function of the universally popular video game super mario brothers, this meant staying true to the source material itself: the game. And that’s exactly what Illumination and filmmakers Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic have done in this second installment of the Nintendo big-screen game. It all started with working with the original Super Mario Bros Game architect Shigeru Miyamoto, who was involved in the animated film as an active producer.

It’s an asset the first live-action film adaptation lacked in 1993, with the title distributed by Disney/Hollywood Pictures, which ended up netting a disastrous $40 million for WW out of nearly $50 million in production costs.

The best movie marketing machines in town – and Universal has one of them – don’t work without a film that appeals to audiences (and studios can decipher that appeal early on). Super Mario Bros Easily achieving an A CinemaScore and 88% PostTrak exits, with a 75% definite recommendation, versus the 1993 film’s B+ and 29% Rotten Tomatoes viewer rating.

The Super Mario Bros Gaming Universe has reportedly earned $22 billion worldwide and sold nearly 400 million games since its inception in the mid-1980s. 1993: Super Mario Bros. still popular enough to fuel a potential box office rush. Midwest exhibitor Rick Roman fired off a letter (correspondence we’ve read) to then-Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg detailing his theories as to why the film shrunk Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel.

“How can a film with a primary market of 56 million kids who play the Mario video game relentlessly attract less than 10% of them?” writes Roman in a letter dated June 22, 1993. The photo was taken over Memorial Day weekend for an $8.5 million four-day house opening.

“The answer lies in the tagline chosen to promote the film: ‘This is not a game.’ The film Super Mario brothers was just that ‘it wasn’t the game,'” Roman wrote.

Katzenberg responded to Roman a month later, on July 22, 1993, writing, “We have some theories of our own in the studio and feel that, for whatever reason, the film clearly failed to capture the many to please fans of the video game.” Sentence. While the film has long focused on ambition and fantasy, it wasn’t just trying to bring the video game to the big screen. The filmmakers were quite successful in creating an imaginative world, but ultimately the script did not deliver as it could or should have.”

Katzenberg further added, “As you may know, Hollywood Pictures did not fully fund creative control Super Mario brothers. The film was made by our partners at Cinergi under the Hollywood banner and Buena Vista Pictures Distribution acts as the distribution entity in this case.”

Like any great animated film (think Shrek), lighting obstructs Super Mario Bros by comparing the current biggest names in film with their respective character similarities e.g. B. Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowzer, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, etc.

Then there was guardians of the universe Starring Chris Pratt in the title role of Mario. Initially, negative chatter from the fall trailer seemed to come online that Pratt’s impersonation wasn’t Italian enough. Fortunately for Universal/Illumination/Nintendo, it burned out and didn’t seem to affect ticket sales for the animated pic. The failure of the 1993 live-action production, mired in production problems (read the Variety article here ), was intended as a prequel that produced a story unrelated to the video game set in the sister world, Dinohatten not. The female protagonist Daisy discovers that she is descended from dinosaurs and is kidnapped by King Koopa (Dennis Hopper). Frog isn’t a talking mushroom, he’s a punk rocker. Brooklyn plumbers Mario and Luigi (Bob Hoskins and John Leguziamo) eventually rescue her from Koopa. Miyamoto’s lack of participation made the picture’s failure even worse. At the time, the film was a licensed experiment for Nintendo, and the video game company gave the filmmakers creative control. It was a bad move in hindsight and prevented Nintendo from making another one Super Mario Bros film until they teamed up with Illumination decades later.

Universal recording of the Super Mario Bros. Movie Previewed at a Comic-Con panel in New York this fall, with a synchronous integration on Nintendo Direct (digital YouTube press conference for the brand) along with a global digital launch. The second trailer was released in November and was also added to the must-see movie of the holiday. Avatar: The Way of Water. The second trailer also got a boost from an integration with The Game Awards, a 60-second spot football on sunday night, and a 30-second spot in the World Cup Championship Game. To date the three have The Super Mario Bros. Movie Trailers have been watched over 750 million times worldwide.

In late 2022, McDonald’s global Happy Meal campaign was also launched for the photo, which includes a Happy Meal box takeover, themed outlets, digital and social activations, and a custom animated/live hybrid TV spot. The campaign visited 118 markets and more than 35,000 locations. The partnership included two different lines of Happy Meal premiums, including plastic figurines, which were available in virtually every global McDonald’s location around the world.

late January and February, the Super Mario Bros. Movie Campaign that spanned multiple spots in the NFL championship games and the NBA All-Star Game, and led to the launch of the film’s SMBPlumbing site, which swept through the noise upon its launch on Super Bowl Sunday. Website traffic has reached more than 35 million interactions and more than 1.6 million users worldwide. The chatbot feature on the website reportedly reached capacity within an hour of launch and had to be rebuilt to meet all the demand.

In late February, actually a month before release, Universal decided to move the film’s domestic release date to the Wednesday before Easter (instead of Good Friday) in order to synchronize a full worldwide release with the day and date . Smart move, huh Super Mario Bros. Movie recorded and broke a worldwide opening record for an animated film frozen 2‘s $358.2 million and a 5-day record for Illumination (Beat Despicable Me 2$143 million in 5 days) and a record $146.3 million in three days followers$115.7 million).

March 10 has been Nintendo’s Mario Day since 2016 (March 10 resembles the name Mario). Then the advance tickets for the film went on sale. The third trailer has dropped and the cast has appeared The Kelly Clarkson Show and joined the Roots, Illumination boss Chris Meledandri and Miyamoto to sing the Mario theme song The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

There were TV spots for the picture during March Madness, as well as Hispanic and Latino programming, leading all U.S. viewers with 40%. There have been in-game appearances for the film on children’s games such as Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite.

What is remarkable about this opening for Super Mario Bros. is that it came about without a $100 million worldwide ad affiliate campaign, many of which typically involve an automotive affiliate (vehicle affiliates are not standard for an animated film marketing campaign).

In addition to McDonald’s, there was a Shake Shack promotion, featuring Super Mario brothers Acquisition of the Shake Shack location in the Dumbo area of ​​New York from March 30th to April 2nd. There was movie branding inside and outside the cabin, special food offers, product giveaways and photo opportunities with the Big Question Mark Block, The Super Mario Bros. Plumber’s Truck and Mario Kart.

The collaboration kicked off on March 30 with an influencer and press event hosted by Chance the Rapper. Shake Shack also promoted the collaboration in their stores nationwide. At 20 of their locations, as well as across social and digital channels, they had a chance to win tickets to the film by purchasing a Shroom Burger.

In Mexico, 7-Eleven partnered with Super Mario Bros. for interior and exterior design of stores in Monterrey (their largest location in Mexico) and Mexico City. To celebrate the installation in Monterrey, 7-Eleven hosted a launch event on March 28, inviting press, influencers and consumers. The event included a lighting ceremony, lights and music, and a Mario Kart show. The larger 7-Eleven program included in-store signage at all 1,875 7-Eleven locations nationwide.

Aimed at female Mario Bros fans, LUSH Cosmetic had a range of products associated with the photo’s release in its 850 stores in over 50 global markets, including Princess Peach Body Spray, Mario and Luigi Shower Gels and a first of its kind “surprise” Mystery Question Block bath bomb with power-up soaps hidden inside.

Hot Sauce TRUFF hit the scene with a Super Mario Bros sauce collection with custom bottle labels (Mario – Hotter, Princess – Hot and Toad – Black Truffle) and a Mushroom Kingdom inspired outer packaging.

NBCUniversal’s symphony programming — promoting Universal’s signature tentpoles in the tentacles of the Comcast empire — has a co-branded campaign for Xfinity 10G and an NBC-themed night by Me – despicable me 3 almost three minutes of advertising time was given to it The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

At Universal’s theme parks around the world, visitors were treated to a Mario Kart photo shoot, theater covers, a spot on the Studio Tour tram tour and merchandise. On Mario Day, NBCU Symphony support included a TODAY Show segment, a Peacock ad takeover before every Illumination movie on the platform, and custom 15-second MAR10 DAY spots that ran across NBCU cable networks.

Again, all this speaker marketing works when a studio has a film to hook the masses. While Super Mario fans were disappointed with the first film, Universal, Illumination and Nintendo planned from the start to sell it with nothing less than real.