"The Super Mario Bros. Movie" was uploaded on Twitter amid its record-breaking global box office of a staggering $1 billion.
And as such, millions of Twitter users have skipped the theaters and instead watched it via the Elon Musk-owned social media.
'Super Mario Bros. Movie' Illegally Uploaded Twitter
According to Mashable, a Twitter user uploaded the entire "Super Mario Bros. Movie" days after breaking records at the box office. The first post of the full movie saw the light of day on Apr. 28. However, it took the Musk-owned social media two days before the platform removed it. In fact, it garnered roughly more than 9 million before it vanished into thin air.
Interestingly, the uploader only sliced the entire movie into two parts instead of the usual fashion wherein it is posted in several chunks of two-minute clips. The Verge reports that the "Avatar: The Way of Water" is also available on Twitter in the same manner - uploaded in two parts.
Previously, or before the Musk era, Twitter only allowed users to upload two-minute-long clips. But with the recent change with the Twitter Blue subscription, paying users may now opt to upload at least 60 minutes or one hour long when they are on a desktop. On Android or iOS, the new rules modestly kept it at 10 minutes.
With these new options, a user shared "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" with everyone else. The first part spans an hour, whereas the second half is about 30 minutes.
Mashable highlights that other blockbuster movies have previously premiered illegally on the platform, such as "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" and the original "Avatar" movie. And like the "Super Mario Bros Movie," these films were available on the platform for quite a while before Twitter took them down.
Read Also : Nintendo Modifies 'Super Mario Bros' Character's 'Offensive' Name Ahead of Movie Release in Japan
Twitter Suspends Uploader
Since Twitter took down the two-part video, the platform has reprimanded the upload of the entire movie, slapping the user with a suspension. On the other hand, the user who shared the video and gained a whopping 8.5 million views was left untouched.
Daily Mail notes that despite that online leak of the movie, it still made whopping records at the box office. For four straight weekends, it was the top-grossing film.
Its box office figures saw a significant drop on its third weekend, similar to most films. However, it is slightly better than the average figures. It only slumped by roughly 35%, while most films only dropped by around 50% as early as the second weekend.
As of writing, the movie's total gross, which follows Mario, played by Chris Patt and Luigi (Charlie Day), is now at a cool $1 billion.
Related Article : 'Super Mario Bros. Movie' Tops the Charts for 3rd Straight Week