'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' Sets Streaming Premiere Date On Peacock
The Illumination film will be coming off a 4-month run becoming the year's highest grossing performer
It’s party time for Mario and Luigi. They may be sharing time between Brooklyn and the Mushroom Kingdom, but the brothers are finally ready to make home on Peacock. The NBCUniversal-owned streamer announced Thursday that The Super Mario Bros. Movie will exclusively arrive there on August 3.
That’s not all however, as the film brings with it bonus features including behind-the-scenes cast interviews, an immersive “Field Guide” with yet-to-be-disclosed bonus features, and the lyric video for “Peaches”, though Deadline reports it’s a song sung by Princess Peach, voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy. Originally opening April 5-7 for most of the world, The Super Mario Bros. Movie would earn the biggest opening weekend of the year and earned $204 million in the first five days of release. That has culminated in over $1.3 billion ($573.6 million US/Canada, $777.4 million elsewhere) for its entiire theatrical run, making it the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time, the year's highest grossing film, and the third-highest grossing animated film in history. The film comes from Universal Pictures, Illumination Entertainment and Nintendo, based on the long-running video game franchise.
While theatrical windows have been played with a lot the last few years due in large part to the pandemic, the studios kept The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s theatrical run going, even as its digital release came in May and the domestic physical release in June. It finally lands on streaming on day 120. Recent billion-dollar makers Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick took 173 and 209 days respectively, though that may be due to director James Cameron and star Tom Cruise respectively, each on record as being staunch defenders of the in-theater experience (and probable contractual obligations). Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion took 84 days to hit the streamer.
Currently, Universal films’ Pay-1 window agreement allows Peacock the first and last four months of the 18 month window. The middle ten will be spent at Prime Video, which means The Super Mario Bros Movie will arrive there in time for Christmas and last for most of 2024, and return to Peacock until the post-Pay 1 window where it goes to Starz. In addition Taylor-Joy’s Peach, the film stars Chris Pratt as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, with supporting roles from Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike, Kevin Michael Richardson, Khary Payton and Charles Martinet as Mario and Luigi’s dad and Giuseppe. It was directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, with a script by Matthew Fogel.
