Despite a low Rotten Tomatoes score, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is already breaking box office records

While The Super Mario Galaxy Movie holds a low Rotten Tomatoes score of 42%, that isn't stopping audiences from flocking to the movie.

According to Deadline, the film scored a $34 million haul in the US for the best opening day of 2026, besting Project Hail Mary, which brought in $33.1 million across previews and its opening day. But, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie's opening is also the best opening Wednesday of the month of April, gliding past its predecessor, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which scored $31.7 million back in 2023. And, even more impressively, Galaxy did it all without previews.

The low Rotten Tomatoes score is also offset by a much higher audience score of 91%. Our own The Super Mario Galaxy Movie review awards the film 3-stars, with our reviewer writing: "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie surpasses the original thanks to relentless energy and creativity, but its starry-eyed ambitions fizzle out thanks to the bizarre treatment of Brie Larson's Rosalina and an undercooked story."

One of the most exciting of the Super Mario Galaxy Movie Easter eggs is the inclusion of Star Fox, which Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto expected would spark pushback.

"I wanted to see what it would be like, but I also felt that there may be significant resistance internally about that idea, so after I got this proposal, I contacted the necessary parties involved and started my lobbying activity here at Nintendo," he revealed. "However, I was surprised to find that a lot of people saw a lot of potential with it and were really excited to see what would come out of this."

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is in theaters now. You can fill out your watchlist with our roundup of the best video game movies.