Super Mario Bros. movie delayed until 2023

For a particularly niche portion of the movie going public, there is perhaps no more anticipated upcoming release than the Super Mario Bros. Movie. The project, being produced by Illumination animation studios in partnership with Nintendo, has been spoken about with mix feelings and expectations since the announcement of Illumination’s involvement in 2018.

Such conversations have only deepened in suspicion after the announcement of the voice acting cast some months ago, with some of the most controversial and/or meme-worthy choices being Chris Pratt as Mario, Jack Black as Bowser, and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong.

And yesterday, April 25, the speculation of the future Mario Bros. Movie’s quality has been given an extra detail for fans and onlookers to obsess about, as (apparently) Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario himself (as well as many other Nintendo flagship characters), has taken to the company’s American branch Twitter account to announce a major delay to the film.

Super Mario Bros. movie release date moves

Until yesterday, the Mario Bros. movie was thought to be releasing sometime this year. However, as you can see from Miyamoto’s announcement, both the global and domestic releases have been pushed back to April of next year. What this could mean in terms of the film’s development is anyone’s guess, and no doubt those guesses will be shared online by eager and skeptical Mario fans alike.

It is easy to interpret this as a bad omen for the film, especially due to the Mario franchise’s tumultuous history outside of the video game medium, particularly within film. The 1993’s Mario Bros. Movie is often used as a symbol or figurehead for the misguided and unfortunate bout of video game inspired movies released at the time. It is a reputation that video game movies to this day still struggle to overcome, with a recent example being the poorly received Uncharted film earlier this year. However, the Sonic the Hedgehog movies have proven an exception to the rule, turning out large box office results and satisfied audiences.

For gamers, the announcement of the delay may in fact be a good thing. Many of them may be familiar with a famous quote by Miyamoto, “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” Surely the same can apply to films, though a delay in film production typically signals a step in the opposite direction. As to how it applies to the Mario Movie, we can only wait till April of next year to decide.