Super Mario Bros.
will be entitled to a sequel.
The mustachioed plumber, Nintendo star, will return to the cinema for new adventures in 2026. The first animated film, released in 2023, ranked second at the global box office and collected more than $1.36 billion of recipes, only being left behind by
Barbie
.
“We will soon start the animation phase
,” explains Christopher Meledandri, founder of the American animation studio Illumination, which also co-produced the first opus.
He also specified that the new film would, like the previous one, be directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic.
“Its arrival in theaters is scheduled for April 3, 2026 in the United States and many other regions of the world, and for sometime in April in other territories
,” Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo star creator and co-writer, wrote on social media. creator of the
Super Mario
franchises .
We will reveal more as soon as we feel ready.”
Also read: With its Super Mario film, Nintendo takes on Hollywood
Nintendo has long been wary of Hollywood adaptations of its franchises, after the failure of a first
Super Mario Bros. film.
in 1993. A failed dystopia, where Mario found himself plunged into an apocalyptic dimension populated by dinosaurs.
At the time, the company had simply sold the name of its hero to Hollywood, without participating in the production.
The enormous success of the cartoon in 2023, for which the Japanese giant was involved in the development, finally convinced the video game giant.
The Japanese announced in November that he was working on a live-action film inspired by the world of Zelda, another of its major franchises, including the latest video game released last year,
Tears of the Kingdom
, has sold over 20 million copies.
This feature film is to be directed by Wes Ball, author of the
Maze Runner
trilogy , co-produced by Avi Arad, who supervised several major films in the
Spider-Man
series .
The film is also expected to involve Shigeru Miyamoto, according to Nintendo.