I personally bought it because it looked like some innovation on the 2D Mario formula, which -to me- had become stale with New Super Mario Bros. The little I played multiplayer, I didn’t find it particularly great, mostly when players have very different level of skill. I think this might be a case of “correlation does not imply causation.” But what do I know 🤷

What’s a safe bet is -as the article says- the movie definitely helped boost sales, as it did with older titles like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.