The Mario Movie has now officially surpassed $1 billion at the global box office, and while a lot of people have no doubt already seen it, a recent illegal upload on social media has also got some serious attention.
As reported by Forbes, a Twitter account known as “vids that go hard” recently uploaded the entirety of The Super Mario Bros. Movie in two parts. Twitter wasn’t exactly quick to respond, with the videos apparently reaching a whopping nine million views in just seven hours before the account – with over a million followers – was suspended.
While illegal movie uploads like this aren’t exactly out of the ordinary in certain corners of the internet, what’s surprising here is that a major social platform allowed videos like this to stay up for so long. Forbes links it to the platform being understaffed (with mods also “asleep at the wheel”) after recent lay-offs, along with some new upload options for Twitter Blue subscribers.
Under new ownership, the paid Twitter Blue subscription now allows users to upload hour-long high-quality videos, which means movie-length clips could potentially appear more regularly on the platform. It’s not just Twitter, either. GoNintendo reports seeing the “entire film” uploaded to YouTube as well. YouTube typically flags and removes these types of uploads pretty quickly.
While Nintendo and Illumination probably won’t be happy to hear about this, at least they have already banked big at the box office – with the film grossing $490 million in North America and $532 million internationally in just 26 days. If you really can’t hold out for the Mario Movie, but don’t want to go to the cinema – be on the lookout for the disc and official digital release in the near future, with pre-orders now live.
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