Two Twitter accounts have been suspended for sharing a pirated copy of the box office smash “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” — which just passed the $1 billion mark in global ticket sales — but the suspensions did not come before millions were able to watch at least a portion of the movie for free.
One account, @vidsthatgohard, shared the full movie — separated into two parts — to 1.1 million followers. According to a report from Forbes, the quality of the illegal film was fairly decent — save for some hiccups regarding the aspect-ratio — and the tweets including the pirated video were left up on the social media platform for hours before Twitter took any action.
The report’s author, senior contributor Paul Tassi, chalked the pirated film’s staying power on the platform up to the recent changes at Twitter — namely the fact that new owner Elon Musk has admitted to cutting staff by up to 80%, including the content moderators who would normally be expected to monitor such tweets. Additionally, it is only the new Twitter Blue options that allow subscribed users to post videos that are up to one hour long — which is what made it possible to share the entire 92-minute film in just two tweets.
As Mediaite reported later, another account (Twilight Sparkle) also shared the full film — and before Twitter suspended both accounts, they had racked up a combined total of over 9 millions views.
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“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was released in theaters just under one month ago, and has already grossed over $1 billion. It was the first film released in 2023 to reach that benchmark — and one of only a handful to do so since the pandemic. The movie has also cemented its place in history as the most successful video-game-based adaptation of all time.
While critics have not necessarily loved the movie — giving it just 59% on the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes — audience scores (96%) have been much higher.