The Super Mario Bros. Film Hits A Warp Zone To A Spring 2023 Release

Its-a delayed! Mario's second journey to the big screen — the first being the generation-defining 1993 film starring Bob Hoskins as Mario, John Leguizamo as Luigi and Dennis Hopper (!?!) as Bowser, of course – was slated to debut at the end of this year. December 21, 2022 to be exact. But according to the official Nintendo Instagram feed, the companies involved have decided to push back the release to April 7, 2023 here in North America. Global release, including Japan, will be April 28, 2023.

No reason was given for the push, but Nintendo's Game Director, Shigeru Miyamoto, promises "it will be well worth the wait." We could speculate all day about the push, especially since the still untitled Super Mario film would had staked a claim during the coveted Christmas release timeframe, but my guess is it's probably a combination of wanting more time to dedicate to the animation pipeline and not wanting to be within a mile of "Avatar 2," which currently has a December 16, 2022 release date.

The Super Mario film is a partnership between Nintendo and Illumination Studios, the company behind the "Minions" films and "The Secret Life of Pets," and features an all-star cast, including Chris Pratt as Mario (the voice actor who has been playing Mario for decades, Charles Martinet, is also on the cast list, but not playing Mario), Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Jack Black as Bowser, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong.

That voice cast definitely paints a picture of the kind of 3D Animated adventure this Mario is going on, doesn't it? Big names, mostly comedians ... yeah, it's gonna fit in that "Despicable Me" tone, isn't it? Although, I have to say Princess Peach being played by Anya Taylor-Joy is pretty inspired. In fact, if they ever decided to go the live action route with Mario again, she'd be a pretty spot-on Peach. Don't ask me who could play Mario and Luigi in live-action, though. Once you've seen Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo in those roles, I think it permanently fries the tiny section of your brain that can come up with any flesh and blood versions of those characters.

All I know is that in a perfect world this adaptation ends up more "Lego Movie" than "Despicable Me" and it's possible we'll get something that hues close to that since Matt Fogel (one of the writers on "The Lego Movie: The Second Part") is the sole credited screenwriter for this one. It's also worth noting that the directors are Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, who previously worked on "Teen Titans Go," which, like the "Lego" movies, was way better than it had any right to be.