THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE Continues No.1 Run, Defeats Immoral Box Office Competition
By Movieguide® Contributor
In its second week at the box office, the SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE comfortably maintains its number one spot.
The animated hit grossed $92.5 million domestically over Easter weekend. Including Monday’s numbers, the SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE has raked in over $700 million worldwide and is well on its way to being the first movie this year to cross the $1 billion mark.
This weekend’s horror movies THE POPE’S EXORCIST and RENFIELD were vastly overshadowed by the MARIO BROS. MOVIE. THE POPE’S EXORCIST was number 2 at the box office, bringing in $9.2 million, while RENFIELD was number 4 at $8 million.
The success of the SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE continues the trend of uplifting, positive, family-friendly movies succeeding at the box office while horror and violent movies perform poorly.
The continued success of family movies is encouraging as moviemakers focus on making movies that audiences like. The success of the SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE tells producers that audiences want more movies like it. Due to the success of the Mario movie, many fans are excited to see if Nintendo will allow more of their IPs to come to the big screen.
Movieguide® has previously reported on the success of uplifting movies:
For the past 30 years, Movieguide® has provided an annual Report to the Entertainment Industry highlighting how movies with moral, uplifting, and positive content outperform immoral, R-rated movies at the box office.
In 2020, the box office revenue hit a drought, as audiences did not want to leave their houses, and studios did not want to release blockbusters for fear of financial loss.
However, Movieguide®’s reports held true in 2020 and 2021, as family-friendly movies lifted the box office from the brink of collapse; and now, secular sources are catching on.
Moviegoers’ voices were more important than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic when studios and exhibitors struggled to show movies.
While there were some flops, the success of family-friendly movies early on in the pandemic gave theater chains and Hollywood a sliver of hope. From the start, it became clear that audiences would come in droves if the content met their standard.
Axios, an American news outlet, recently reported that in 2022, R-Rated movies brought in the lowest percentage of box office revenue in over 25 years.
The Numbers echoed Axios’ findings and noted that every movie to earn over $100 million in 2021 was movies rated PG-13 and below.
However, this connection between moral content and box office revenue is something Movieguide® has researched since 1993. Since then, Movieguide® has battled to help Hollywood studios and executives to see the truth about audiences and the box office.
“Since Movieguide®’s first annual Faith & Values Awards Gala & Report to the Entertainment Industry in 1993, the number of movies with morally uplifting, biblical and/or positive Christian content has more than quadrupled and the number of R-rated movies in the Top 25 Movies at the Box Office has declined from about 12 per year to only two to four each year,” Movieguide® wrote.
While Movieguide® approaches every piece of media from a Biblical worldview, even secular outlets and organizations are condemning Hollywood for turning a blind eye to their largest audience and insisting on producing excessive and immoral content each year.
In an Op-Ed published by the editorial board of Deseret News in 2010, the board found that families wanted clean movies.
“The entertainment industry is a business that, like any other, relies on profits to survive,” the board wrote in its op-ed. “Its leaders even have been fond of mouthing support for the free market, saying people should be free to watch what they want without government interference. And yet something other than a profit motive seems to be at work when it comes to the products they produce.”
“We’re not inclined to believe in nefarious conspiracy theories, but the least that can be said here is that Hollywood is out of touch with its audience,” the op-ed continued. “Perhaps this has to do with the personal tastes of industry officials and producers, many of whom live lives far different from that of the average American. By simply removing several unnecessary swear words (which hardly could be considered art), they could lower a film’s rating and earn 25 to 35 percent more in profits. That could translate into tens of millions of dollars.”
While studios are motivated by money, Movieguide®’s goal with the annual Report to the Entertainment Industry is to “redeem the values of the entertainment industry, according to biblical principles, by influencing industry executives and artists.”
In Movieguide®’s 2021 report, Dr. Ted Baehr noted: “Our results showed first that the most family-friendly movies with no explicit, obscene content earned more than twice as much money as the least family-friendly movies with the most explicit, obscene content, $27.85 million versus only $12.36 million.”
“Also, movies with no sex and no explicit nudity made far more money at the North American box office than movies with some explicit sex and nudity or extremely explicit sex and nudity,” he added.
But the motivation for clean, morally uplifting content in the media should not be solely monetary. Dr. Ted Baehr’s books titled “The Culture Wise Family” and “The Media Wise Family” outlines the importance of protecting children from the flawed views of violence, sex, and language found in today’s media.
However, it is not Movieguide®’s hope to block all media out of fear, but follow the biblical command to train younger generations “in the way that they should go,” (Psalm 22:6), so they know how to best respond.
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