Earlier this month, we predicted that Jack Black’s piano ballad “Peaches” from The Super Mario Bros. Movie could be a dark horse for Song of the Summer, and now, it’s become his first solo hit.
As reported by Billboard, the impassioned dedication to Princess Peach (voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy) from Black’s character Bowser debuted at No. 83 on the Hot 100 chart with 5.8 million US streams and 6,000 downloads in its first week. As of publishing, its music video — directed by Lyrical Lemonade’s Cole Bennett — has racked up 17 million views. Watch the clip below.
“Jack Black is an incredible singer and musician, so we spent a night writing the song and sent the demo to Jack,” Super Mario Bros. co-director Aaron Horvath said in a statement (via Insider). “A couple [of] days later, Jack sent us back a finished track. He had added his own twist on it and his pianist played an original music track for it. We were blown away.”
Back in 2006, Black scored a Hot 100 hit as part of the comedy rock duo Tenacious D when “The Pick of Destiny” debuted and peaked at No. 78. Formed with Kyle Gass, the group has landed four albums on the Billboard 200. Tenacious D will resume their world tour next month; grab your tickets now via StubHub, where orders are 100% guaranteed through StubHub’s FanProtect program.
Meanwhile, The Super Mario Bros. Movie continues to top the box office by raking in $92 million domestically during this past weekend alone. Thus far, it has grossed more than $700 million worldwide after surpassing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the biggest opening weekend by a video game adaptation.
The inevitable sequel hasn’t been announced yet, but Black has already shared that he would like Pedro Pascal to play Wario in the second installment.