I kept hearing that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie had a ‘record-breaking weekend,’ but then I looked at the actual records

As the saying goes, records were made to be broken—and that’s especially true if you invent a bunch of records just so you can say they’ve been broken.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie came out last week and, despite it kinda sucking, predictably had a monster of a weekend at the box office. But after reading a bunch of stories breathlessly reporting that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie broke records on its opening weekend, I’m questioning exactly what records it broke and if they should even be considered records. According to articles from around the internet, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie had:

• The biggest global opening of 2026 to date
• The biggest domestic opening of 2026 to date
• The biggest MPA international opening of 2026 to date

Yes, TSMGM had a genuinely massive weekend (which began on Wednesday because that’s when movie studios pretend the weekend begins so they can claim they had massive weekends). It made $372,487,455 worldwide ($190 million domestic and $182 million worldwide). That’s fantastic. That almost matches the $377.5 million The Super Mario Bros. Movie made its first weekend in 2023—on its way to grossing over $1 billion.

That’s inarguably a huge opening, biggest of the year, but just to point out the obvious: it’s April. It’s the beginning of April, even, and no one releases anything in January or February. Apart from Project Hail Mary in March (which made $141 million in its first weekend), there haven’t been a lot of big movies to outperform for this “record.” What did it really beat? Wuthering Heights? Scream 7? Another damn Avatar? Whatever the hell Hoppers is? Melania?

It’s April. I have no doubt Galaxy is going to be one of the biggest movies of the year, but 2026 hasn’t really started yet. Coming up this year we’ve still got Avengers: Doomsday, Toy Story 5, The Odyssey, Disney’s live-action Moana, Spielberg’s return to making alien movies, and another damn Spider-Man. Galaxy crushed it, no doubt. But it’s April. Calm down.

I also read that SMGM is:

• The only animated franchise with two titles opening over $350M globally
• The only animated franchise to have two titles open over $170M internationally

Yeah, more impressive money stuff, but here you’re just throwing the dart first and then drawing the bullseye around wherever it lands.

First, you don’t need to differentiate between animated films and live-action films anymore—animation is perfectly mainstream these days—unless you’re trying to exclude a whole bunch of live-action films so your invented record looks more impressive. Cut out Spider-Man movies, Avengers movies, The Fast & Furious franchise, Disney live-action remakes, and look who is left all alone on the podium: It’s a-me, Mario! (Or as Chris Pratt would say: “It is me. I am Mario. Wa. Hoo.”)

Second, unless you say beforehand that $350 million and $170 million are specific milestones, they just feel arbitrary as records. If Usain Bolt doesn’t finish a 200 meter dash, you don’t give him a medal for running the first 170 meters, right?

• The biggest Wednesday in April ever

There we go! That is simple, and true, and worth pointing out. Galaxy made $34 million on its first Wednesday in April, compared to the next best, which was $31 million for the 2023 Mario movie. A legit record. Good job!

But then we start getting really in the weeds:

• The second biggest three-day animated domestic opening for Universal
• The fourth biggest five-day domestic opening ever
• The fourth biggest three-day Easter weekend
• The third biggest three-day domestic opening for video game adaptation
• The fourth animated franchise with two titles opening over $100M over three days

OK, what are we doing here? Is the weekend three days or five days? Why not throw in a couple two-day and one-day weekends, too? And how many caveats should records have? “If you count two titles but exclude live-action and only count three days instead of five, it’s only the fourth time it’s ever happened!” Wow, you don’t say.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie had a massive opening weekend and is easily going to make a billion dollars. That’s a reward in itself: there’s no need to invent a bunch of extra ones.