By the time you read this, I'll be watching 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in cinemas. Many of you will have already seen it, or will be planning to go this weekend. It has been hit with rave reviews and has a lot of things in its favour with the hype from the Spider-Man 2 video game, limited competition from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Little Mermaid, and the fact that the first movie has been hailed as the greatest comic book movie of all time since it swung onto our screens back in 2018. I expect it to do very, very well at the box office, and have high hopes that I am currently, as you read this, enjoying it a great deal. But it will not beat 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
The two have very little in common, of course. They're both animated movies hoping for significant adult turnout, and were wise to avoid each other on the calendar, but they're not especially related. You might think it's foolish to even compare the two in this way, and you're correct. It is. But I'm not the one doing it, at least not initially. There is a throng of Spider-Verse fans hoping Miles Morales will knock Mario off his perch, ♉and you need to prepare for disappointment. He will not.
This is not a comment on which is the better movie. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I liked Mario more than most critics, but it was a decent movie and nothing more. Into the Spider-Verse was spectacular, heralding a new dawn for animation, and I have faith that Across the Spider-Verse will live up to the heights it set. I fully expect that Spider-Verse will be a better movie. But it will not make more money, and it's worth getting over that already. It's a desperately sad way to live, reducing art to a competition, and turning it into a competition you are destined to lose is ludicrous.
You remember the phenomenon that was Frozen, right? It was everywhere. That damn song stuck in your ears for months. You couldn't go into a store without seeing that blonde plait. Frozen was a bona fide phenomenon - in a world of disposable children's entertainment, it carved a legacy, becoming the highest grossing animated movie of all time. The Super Mario Bros. Movie beat it at the box office. Making $1.294 billion at the box office to Frozen's $1.284, it now has Frozen's sequel and the current champion in its sights at $1.453, and ♎is expected to clear $1.5 billion when all is said ꦆand done.
Into the Spider-Verse, by contrast, is 77th on the animated movie list with $375 million. That was a major success for the movie, and is a lot of money, but you could triple that and you'd still not be on Mario's level. Across will likely do significantly better - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:heavily influenced by Spider-Verse and pulled in $485 million in a post-pandemic world with significantly less buzꦕz than Miles will generate. But Mario numbers are beyond it.
Into the Spider-Verse made just over half what the next lowest Spider-Man movie did, with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 earning $709 million. In fact, of all three Maguire movies, both Garfield movies, and all three Holland movies, only No Way Home beat Mario. Into The Spider-Verse scored $35 million in its first weekend, and Across is projected to double that at somewhere in the $70-80 million region. Some are calling it at $100 million, which would be huge and would set it up to clear $500 million. Mario meanwhile made $377 million in its first weekend. More than what Into made in its lifetime. They just aren't in the same league, they're barely playing the same sport.
None of this is a commentary on quality. When Mario became the highest grossing video game movie, it had to step on Rampage's head to jump above Warcraft - making the most money and being the best are two wildly different concepts. There's nothing wrong with liking Mario, nothing wrong even with liking it more than Spider-Verse. But celebrating its box office as a victory for yourself is a hollow indictment of the sportification of art, where things we love must be indelible aspects of our identity, beyond reproach or critique, and whose monetary success is to be shared in. By liking Mario, it's kind of like you made $1.5 billion at the box office too. You didn't, but it almost sorta feels that way and you've decided that's enough.
Of course, Spider-Verse fans are no better, with their central hopes for the sequel not that it's good, or that it continues to push animation forward, but that it has characters you recognise from IP and generates value for the shareholders. The problem with wanting to beat Mario at the box office is not only that you've brought a knife to a gunfight, but that you are hanging your potential enjoyment of a piece of art on how much money it generates. If this is your attitude you can have no complaints when 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Netflix cancels your favorite shows or when 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Disney Plus deletes them - you have decided that money = victory i💯s the rule you support.
I hope Across the Spider-Verse is fantastic, and (rarely for a comic book movie these days) I expect it to be. If how you feel about it, or what you'll constitute as a success, hinges on whether some faceless men in suits get more money than the other faceless men in suits who signed a contract about a plumber who jumps up and down, you might be watching movies wrong.