'Super Mario Bros. Movie' sequel to premiere in April 2026
It's-A Mario, and he is set to return to the big screen for more grand adventures as Nintendo has announced that The Super Mario Bros. Movie will return with a sequel.
In a video posted by animation studio Illumination on March 10, which commemorates Mario Day, Nintendo game director Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination’s Chris Meledandri shared the good news that the 2023 animated film will have a continuation.
"We are now working with the folks at Illumination on a new animated film based on the world of Super Mario Bros.," Miyamoto said. "The team at Illumination, who worked on The Super Marios Bros. Movie, is also producing this new film together with Nintendo."
Meledandri detailed that co-directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic will once again helm the upcoming flick and that they are already "busy at work storyboarding scenes and developing set designs for new environments" together with the animators.
"We start animation soon, and rest assured we’ll be obsessing over every detail to get it just right," he highlighted.
Details on whether the film's voice cast would also be returning have yet to be disclosed.
The Super Marios Bros. Movie tells the origin story of Nintendo's most famous character Mario and his brother Luigi, who are separated after being transported to a fantasy world and come to blows with the evil Bowser.
The film stars the likes of Chris Pratt as Mario, Jack Black as Bowser, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong.
After its release, the film took the title of the highest-grossing video game movie ever after a worldwide total of $1.36 billion (P75 billion).
This feat was formerly held by the 2016 action and fantasy film Warcraft, which had earned $439.4 million (P24.4 billion), and by the 2019 mystery comedy film Pokémon Detective Pikachu, which accumulated $449.8 million (P25 billion) in ticket sales.
The sequel to The Super Marios Bros. Movie will premiere on April 3, 2026 in US theaters, and it will be released in other global markets throughout the same month.
