The Mario movie was hit with a mid-2023 delay

Momma mia

Nintendo, after consulting with Illumination, has decided to push the Mario feature film project, and just announced a Mario movie delay.

The news comes directly from Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto through the Nintendo of America Twitter account [and Japan], accompanied by the following statement:

“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.”

Seeing “Chris-san” in an official tweet from Miyamoto and thinking it was Chris Pratt for a hot second (it’s Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri) is not something I ever saw myself considering in 2022. It’s been a weird year and we’re not even halfway through. Considering that we haven’t even seen any real inkling that this project is moving along, it’s possible there’s still a lot of work to go: and animation is a tough and demanding business.

Again, Nintendo has confirmed that the new spring 2023 date is April 7 in North America, and April 28 in Japan. In any case, the Mario movie delay was completely expected in this current climate, with Sony shuffling around multiple films, amid other studios doing the same thing.

Chris Carter

Reviews Director, Co-EIC – Chris has been enjoying Destructoid avidly since 2008. He finally decided to take the next step, make an account, and start blogging in January of 2009. Now, he’s staff!