There’s little doubt that 2023 has been a surprising year both on the video game front and the movie front. Films and games that you would’ve expected to be super special and do really well haven’t always been that way or petered out really quickly. Then, certain projects blow everyone’s mind simply because they did their jobs well enough to earn a lot of money. Many of you have like seen or heard from someone that the movie with Barbie is incredible, and before that, there was the Super Mario Bros Movie, which also exploded people’s expectations.
No one could’ve predicted that both of those films would get over a billion at the box office, and yet that happened and is about to happen with Barbie’s movie. It calls into question what certain companies should do next, given its success, and Nintendo is one of them.
Thankfully, we have a clearer picture of what The Big N will do. At their recent financial results meeting, the company stated that the Super Mario Bros Movie has grossed over $1.3 Billion at the box office and is doing incredibly well on streaming platform Peacock. A byproduct of this is that the games associated with Mario are seeing a big uptick in sales.
The company is very much enjoying the success of this and desires to make more:
“By expanding Nintendo IP in areas outside the dedicated video game platform we create new opportunities for consumers to encounter Nintendo IP, and this invigorates our overall business. Based on the various effects that we have confirmed through the release of this movie, we will continue our efforts towards visual content-related initiatives.”
It’s true that Shigeru Miyamoto and other Nintendo officials have already said that Nintendo would continue its partnership with Illumination, but this is a more official confirmation as it was shared with everyone as part of a results meeting.
As we’ve noted in the past, the only question now is what will Nintendo and Illumination make next. The obvious answer is to do a sequel to the billion-making film, in which there are elements they could expand upon in various ways. They could also do spinoffs with Luigi, Donkey Kong or go jump into another Nintendo property entirely.
That’s the beautiful thing about this success. It opens the door to other Nintendo IPs to get the spotlight that they couldn’t before. So all eyes are on Nintendo as we await their next movie announcement.
