In what’s surely a shock, Nintendo’s confirmed a second Super Mario Bros. movie is in the works.
With March 10 being Mario Day, there’s been some non-game releated Mario announcements. Longtime designer Shigeru Miyamoto took to Twitter to reveal Illumination is already at work on the sequel, which is expected to drop on April 3, 2026. For the sequel, both Illumination and Nintendo’s staff will be collaborating on the film together. While he didn’t have anything to say about the cast or what to expect, Miyamoto teased the team was “thinking about broadening Mario’s world further, and it’ll have a bright and fun story. We hope you’ll look forward to it!”
The first Super Mario Bros. movie came out in April 2023 with no one knowing how it’d shake out, given the last time Mario came to the silver screen was…kind of a mess. Despite a mixed reception, the Illumination film found an audience thanks to its animation and the amount of fan service crammed into it, to say nothing of the fact that it’s a Mario movie and we’re in an age of prety solid video game adaptations. It went on to gross $1.36 billion dollars, becoming the second highest-grossing film of 2023 (behind Barbie) and the third-highest grossing animated film of all time (behind The Lion King and Frozen II). Oh, and it was nominated for three Golden Globes and got uploaded to Twitter weeks after coming to theaters.
So big was that first Super Mario that it basically reversed Nintendo’s entire stance on transmedia overnight. Last November, the company revealed it was working with Sony on a live-action Legend of Zelda film, and that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ director Wes Ball had been tapped to direct.
Super Mario Bros. 2—or whatever it ends up being called—will release on April 3, 2026 in the US and other territories. It’ll release throughout the month for other unspecified regions.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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