A new Super Mario film has been revealed by Nintendo for 2026
Following the success of his debut animated film, which finished second at the global box office last year, Nintendo revealed on Sunday that Mario, the company’s well-known mustachioed plumber, will make a comeback to theaters in 2026 with fresh adventures.
According to a Nintendo video, the new feature film, which will include the most well-known characters from the Japanese video game company, will be published on April 3, 2026 in the United States and globally later the same month.
The only other animated movie to trail the number one spot at the box office in 2023 was Barbie, with $1.36 billion in global receipts from its April 2023 release, „The Super Mario Bros. Movie.”
”We will soon start the animation phase,” explained Meledandri, founder of the American animation studio Illumination, which also co-produced the first film. He also said that the new film, like the previous one, will be directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic.
”We will reveal more as soon as we have new information,” added Shigeru Miyamoto, lead creator at Nintendo.
The movie was made in honor of „Mario Day,” a holiday declared by Nintendo because the character’s name and the English equivalent for March 10 (”MAR 10”) are spelled similarly.
Since the 1993 disaster of „Super Mario Bros.,” a dystopian game in which Mario travels to a post-apocalyptic dimension inhabited by dinosaurs, Nintendo has traditionally avoided Hollywood adaptations of its properties.
During that period, the company did not take part in the film’s production; instead, it only sold Hollywood the names of its characters.
However, a reconsideration of this strategy has been triggered by the popularity of the most recent Mario film, which the Japanese giant assisted in making.
The Japanese business revealed in November of last year that it was also developing a live-action movie based on the Zelda universe, which is another well-known brand in their library and gained popularity after a new video game was released in 2017. Exceeding 20 million copies have been sold of „Tears of the Kingdom.”
”Maze Runner” trilogy author Wes Ball will helm the next feature picture, which will be co-produced by Avi Arad, who has worked with Arad on multiple ”Spiderman” films. Nintendo announced that Shigeru Miyamoto will also work with them.
