Universal and Illumination's much-debated Super Mario Bros. movie has officially been delayed from this year to Easter weekend 2023. The iconic video game property has been translated into film a handful of times before, but this upcoming effort is perhaps the most star-studded one of them all. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic will direct Super Mario Bros., working off a script from Matthew Fogel. The long-gestating film appeared to finally move forward last year when it announced its incredibly surprising cast.
Chris Pratt will lead Super Mario Bros. as Mario himself, while Charlie Day is set to voice his brother Luigi. The rest of the cast is comprised of those like Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Fred Armisen, and Seth Rogen. Plot details are still being kept under wraps. Super Mario Bros. was originally scheduled to debut in December of this year, giving it a prime holiday spot. That has now changed though.
Nintendo, one of the official production companies on the film, has announced that Super Mario Bros. will now release next year. It will debut in North America on April 7 before arriving in Japan on April 28. Additionally, Deadline mentions Universal has moved Puss in Boots: The Last Wish to Super Mario Bros.' original December 23 spot.
It isn't entirely clear what lead to this surprise delay for Super Mario Bros., but it could be that production is taking a bit longer than expected. The full cast was announced back in September, though there have been plans for this iteration of the film as far back as 2020. Still, as was recently seen with Sony's delayed Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, animated movies can require additional time in order to get the visuals just right. Again, this delay does not mean Super Mario Bros.' production is going slower than Universal had hoped, but it is a likely possibility.
This now means the long-awaited Puss in Boots sequel will be the animated feature going up against Avatar 2 and Shazam: Fury of the Gods this Christmas. Super Mario Bros. will instead see how it fares in the spring; April 2023 so far remains pretty open in terms of comparable new releases, so the video game film could find itself enjoying an open field for a while. This year, fellow video game flick Sonic the Hedgehog 2 found much success on roughly the same weekend, which could give Super Mario Bros. some good luck. Now that the movie has been pushed back, though, there might not be any official looks at Super Mario Bros. for some time. That is an unfortunate side effect, but it at least means the creative team has more time to make this animated feature everything it can be.
Source: Nintendo/Twitter, Deadline