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Nintendo Said No Mario for Us This Christmas, Animated Movie Delayed Until 2023

Mamma mia!
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Briana Lawrence
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Published: Apr 26, 2022 10:56 am

During a Nintendo Direct in September 2021, Shigeru Miyamoto shocked the entire Mushroom Kingdom with an announcement for the Super Mario Bros. animated movie. Originally rumored back in 2014 with a deal officially signed four years later in 2018, the 2021 Direct revealed the cast and a December 21, 2022 release.

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Since that Nintendo Direct, there’s been no further information about the movie, but with the success of Sonic 2, it feels like a good time to give a little bit of news, right? A video game movie is doing numbers at the box office, also, the old-school rivalry between Sonic and Mario just screams advertising gold. Well, we do have news about the movie, but it isn’t particularly good (depending on who you ask).

This is Miyamoto. After consulting with Chris-san, my partner at Illumination on the Super Mario Bros. film, we decided to move the global release to Spring 2023–April 28 in Japan and April 7 in North America. My deepest apologies but I promise it will be well worth the wait.

While we aren’t told what the reason for the delay is, that didn’t stop fans from bringing up the fact that a certain blue hedgehog is killing it right now and, maybe, Nintendo got a little scared.

Of course, the actual reason for the delay probably isn’t nearly as “Sega Does What Nintendon’t.”

What we know about the Super Mario Bros. animated movie so far

While there are no plot details or even images of what the characters are going to look like, we do know who’s directing the film and who the main cast is. Chris Meledandri (the Chris-san in that Nintendo tweet), the CEO and founder of Illumination, is co-producing the movie with Miyamoto. Illumination is the studio behind the Despicable Me series of films. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic (Teen Titans Go! and Teen Titans Go! To the Movies) are directing, with screenwriter Matthew Fogel (The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part and Minions: The Rise of Gru) working on the script.

The cast of the film is as follows:

Chris Pratt as Mario

Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach

Charlie Day as Luigi

Jack Black as Bowser

Keegan-Michael Key as Toad

Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong

Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong

Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek

Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike

And surprise cameos from Charles Martinet.

There are a lot (and I mean a LOT) of fantastic tweets about the choices that were made, but I’ll share two of my favorites.

When will Super Mario Bros. be released?

According to Miyamoto, the Super Mario Bros. film will now be released on April 7, 2023, here in the U.S. The Japanese release date will be April 28, 2023. Not to get too conspiracy theory on this, but Sonic 2 was released on April 8, 2022, so maybe Nintendo did see some merit in having a Spring release instead of a holiday one.

Again, it’s just silly speculation, but the timing is pretty interesting nonetheless.

(Image: Marvel/Nintendo)

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Image of Briana Lawrence
Briana Lawrence
Briana (she/her - bisexual) is trying her best to cosplay as a responsible adult. Her writing tends to focus on the importance of representation, whether it’s through her multiple book series or the pieces she writes. After de-transforming from her magical girl state, she indulges in an ever-growing pile of manga, marathons too much anime, and dedicates an embarrassing amount of time to her Animal Crossing pumpkin patch (it's Halloween forever, deal with it Nook)
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