There is a new king (or technically queen) of the box office.
After holding the title of the biggest film of the 2023 in the U.S. since shortly after its debut back in the spring, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has officially been dethroned. As of today, Barbie is now the highest-grossing movie of 2023 domestically. The film has earned $575 million in U.S. theaters, compared to The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s $574 million.
In other words, Barbie just flattened Mario, like an Italian plumber in overalls jumping on a sentient mushroom creature.
READ MORE: Barbie Is Headed to IMAX Theaters With New Footage
For the moment, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is still the worldwide box office champ of the year, with $1.359 billion in theaters around the globe compared to Barbie’s $1.286 billion worldwide. But Barbie is still playing in theaters everywhere — and it’s going to get a boost in a few weeks when it starts playing in IMAX theaters as well.
If Barbie isn’t dethroned by any of the fall’s big releases, it would be the first non-sequel to top the annual box office charts since 2018, when Black Panther was the year’s biggest release. (And that might not even count, since the film was sort of a sequel to Captain America: Ciivil War, which introduced the Black Panther character to the MCU — if you exclude that, you have to go back to 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy to find a top film of the year that wasn’t a sequel.)
So… ya think they’re going to make a Barbie 2 now? Seems somewhat likely to me?
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