By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 12 seconds ago

Right now, there’s a lot of buzz about Hollywood box office earnings. Some movies thought to be surefire hits are floundering, like The Mandalorian & Grogu: despite being the first Star Wars film in seven years, it had the poorest opening weekend of any live-action film in the franchise. When you factor in the costs of marketing, it’s possible it still won’t make enough (reportedly, at least $500 million) to break even. Meanwhile, the horror genre is cleaning up: with Backrooms, 20-year-old Kane Parsons became the youngest director to reach number one at the box office. Meanwhile, Obsession has earned over $224 million and was made for only $750,000. 

With these movies making so many headlines, you might have overlooked another movie making surprising box office history. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie just quietly became the first film of 2026 to make over a billion dollars. This was the sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which went on to earn a jaw-dropping $1.4 billion. The sequel may yet hit that mark, and it’s already proven to be the most successful film of the year. That’s good news for superfans of this plucky plumber. But it’s bad news for everyone else, because the success of this subpar sequel ensures that cinematic slop is here to stay.

(Good) Mario Is Missing

To get this started, I need to rip the band-aid off with a harsh truth: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is bad. Like, really, really bad. On Rotten Tomatoes, it currently has a critical score of 42 percent. Generally speaking, critics griped about everything feeling weightless and meaningless in this movie, and that the threadbare story was practically tacked onto the animation as an afterthought. This is significantly lower than The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which had a critical score of 59 percent. Fans were also disappointed: while the first film had a fan rating of 95 percent, the second one had a lower rating of 88 percent.

Why does the success of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie bum me out? For one thing, it always sucks to see crappy movies rake in money left and right because it’s a reminder that genuinely good films usually suffer at the box office. For example, Masters of the Universe was an attempt to revive He-Man (Mario’s fellow traveler from the ‘80s) for modern moviegoers. It’s a movie that critics liked better than either of the Mario films (it has a 67 percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but it earned less than $30 million in its opening weekend. Considering that its budget was $170 million, chances are high that this fan-favorite film won’t be getting a sequel.

A Failed Cinematic Universe

That’s a shame because, while He-Man isn’t exactly a new property, it’s a revival of a franchise that hasn’t had a film in nearly 40 years. Accordingly, it felt like a fresh-but-faithful labor of love from truly passionate creators. Now that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has earned over $1 billion worldwide, we’re almost certainly going to get more movies exactly like it: rushed sequels that lack all of the charm and originality of the earlier movie. Obsession and Backrooms may be proving the viability of original, low-budget horror movies, but studios chasing billion-dollar box office are going to crank out their own sequel slop as bad (or worse) than The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

While the success of this subpar movie is bad enough for other IPs, it’s arguably even worse for its own. While not perfect, The Super Mario Bros. Movie laid the groundwork for an entire cinematic universe with its cool characters, engaging plot, and memeworthy moments (like Jack Black’s demented “Peaches” song). By comparison, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has tired characters (with the exception of Star Fox), a paint-by-numbers plot, and few memorable moments. Worse, the few memorable moments we do get are tied to forgettable action sequences. Be honest, now: if this is how bad the second Mario movie is, can you imagine how awful the third and fourth ones will be?

Slop In, Slop Out

It’s hard to say without sounding like an old man yelling at clouds (to be fair, one of those clouds was throwing spiky dudes at me), but The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is symbolic of everything wrong with Hollywood. It’s not a terrible movie, but it just never even comes close to its full potential. Nonetheless, it made so much money that the studio (and countless other studios chasing fortune and glory) will put in as little effort as possible into more crappy sequels than anything original. Why should they put in any more effort, though? We vote with our dollars, and when people pay top dollar for low-tier slop, they just get more of the same.

Slop in, slop out. Sorry, movie lovers: thanks to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, your good films are in another castle!

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These days, it’s not uncommon to see new generations of tech launch with higher prices than their predecessors.

Yet Marshall announced its latest Bluetooth speaker, the Stockwell III, on June 9 with a price of $249.99 — the same as the price of the Stockwell II. This decision is even more exceptional considering the older speaker launched seven years ago.

Despite the decision to keep the speaker at the same price point, Marshall is rolling out some significant improvements. Below, we break down what to expect from the speaker.

Marshall Stockwell III: Price and specs

The Marshall Stockwell III will be available for purchase on Aug. 4 on Marshall’s website and at Costco for $249.99. Spec-wise, here’s what to expect from the speaker:

• Battery life: 40 hours

• IP rating: IP55 rated

• Drivers: One three-inch woofer and two 1.75-inch wide band drivers

• Sound features: True Stereophonic 360-degree all-around audio

• Charging: USB-C

• Materials: Silicone sleeve, PU leather strap with velvet lining, brass control panel, metal front and back grilles

• Size: 7.1 x 5.9 x 2.8 inches

• Weight: 2.9 pounds

• Extras: Modular and replaceable parts, including the battery, grilles, silicone sleeve, and carrying case

• Colors: Black, brass and cream

Better battery and options for longevity

The headline news with this upgrade is the battery life, which Marshall doubled from 20 hours on the Stockwell II to 40 hours on the Stockwell III.

The IPX4 water- and dust-proof rating of the Stockwell II gets boosted to IP55 on the Stockwell II, and the control panel gets a cosmetic upgrade with the brass detailing. Still, you can adjust bass and treble settings directly from the speaker as you could with the past generation, in a design choice that feels very aligned with Marshall’s branding. Newly added is the M-button, which allows you to access your presets directly from the speaker.

The brass panel is a design upgrade that elevates the Stockwell III.
Credit: Marshall

Another major update is the replaceable parts, which have the potential to add some serious longevity to this speaker’s battery life. This isn’t the first time Marshall has pulled this move: the newly released Milton headphones also come with the option to buy and replace your own battery. In addition to the Stockwell III’s battery, you can also replace the strap, front and back grilles, silicone sleeve, and carrying case.

The Stockwell III versus other Bluetooth speakers

When our sister site PC Mag reviewed the Stockton II back in 2019, they called out the impressively well-rounded sound with “rich bass and bright highs.” While the reviewer appreciated the performance of the Stockton at the time, they did mention it was on the pricier end.

That’s not unusual for Marshall, and though we can’t speak firsthand to the experience of the Stockwell III, it is notable that there are options to replace parts on this speaker. The 360-sound feature also boosts this speaker’s value prop, especially as it delivers in performance. That said, there are more affordable Bluetooth speaker options, including from Marshall (if the design is what draws you in most).

Marshall Stockwell III: How to buy

The Stockwell III speaker isn’t yet available, with its official launch slated for Aug. 4 on Marshall’s website and at Costco.