Among the more unlikely global hitmakers of 2023, Jack Black scores his first entry on the April 29-dated Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart, one week after debuting on the Billboard Global 200. “Peaches,” Black’s contribution to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, arrives at No. 91 on the former chart and zooms from No. 106 to No. 48 on the latter.
In the week ending April 20, “Peaches” yielded 18.6 million streams and sold 8,000 downloads worldwide, according to Luminate. Those figures represent a 58% streaming increase and a 10% dip in sales from one week prior.
Concurrently, the original motion picture soundtrack for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which includes “Peaches,” ascends to No. 1 on the U.S.-based Soundtracks chart (9,000 equivalent album units).
“Peaches” was released on April 7, following Mario’s April 5 premiere. In its first week, the song took 70% of its sales and 49% of its streams from the United States. In its second week, those percentages slipped to 68% and 43%, respectively, with the song increasing its international reach as the film continued atop the global box office.
Mario grossed a historic $376 million upon its opening, breaking down to 54% domestic and 46% international. Its second weekend added $194.9 million to its total, and in the weekend of April 21-23, another $132 million. From frame to frame, its international earnings climbed from 46% to 52% to 55%, similar to its standout song’s streams growing from 51% to 57%.
On next week’s May 6-dated global charts, based on the tracking week of April 21-27, international streams for “Peaches” should further outdo its domestic clicks as Mario’s box office followed the same path in its third weekend. The film’s strongest non-U.S. markets include Mexico ($66.2 million through April 24, according to Box Office Mojo), the U.K. ($51.7 million) and Germany ($38 million).
Soundtrack songs have a long history on the Billboard charts. Even within the still-brief two-year-plus history of the Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S., Academy Award winning songs by Billie Eilish, Eminem and a Lady Gaga–Bradley Cooper collab have made their stamp. Meanwhile, Black’s global triumph pairs blockbuster associations with the comedy-tinged success of Bo Burnham’s “All Eyes on Me” and “Bezos I,” both of which hit the Global 200 in 2021 on the back of his Netflix special Inside. Black has a history of his own on Billboard’s comedy charts as a member of Tenacious D, though “Peaches” marks his first solo chart hit.
