Gab Hernandez 
As part of Mario Day 2024, Illumination and Nintendo confirmed that pre-production on The Super Mario Bros 2 movie has started, including an exact release date. Unfortunately, it’s not any time soon.
The Super Mario Bros Movie didn’t inspire confidence in hardcore Nintendo fans upon its announcement during the September 2021 Nintendo Direct. The all-star celebrity cast of Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Anya-Taylor Joy, and Seth Rogen led to worries it would be a corporate product. The casting of Chris Pratt raised the most eyebrows, especially among those who expected Charles Martinet to reprise the role for the silver screen.
The reveal of Illumination as the animation studio also concerned animation fans, who worried The Super Mario Bros Movie would include low-brow humor popularized by the Minions franchise. Despite these concerns, the Super Mario Bros Movie became the second-highest-grossing film of 2023. With that level of success, a sequel was inevitable and now details are confirmed on it.
When is The Super Mario Bros 2 Movie release date?
The Super Mario Bros. 2 will come to theaters on April 3, 2026, in the United States.
Before the film’s success, Nintendo global president Shuntaro Furukawa told Fast Company that Nintendo was “not prepared to talk about what’s coming in the future.” After the disaster of the 1993 attempt at a Super Mario Bros movie, Nintendo insisted on being careful about where and how the IP was licensed.
Once The Super Mario Bros Movie proved its merits with the biggest worldwide opening weekend for an animated film ever, cast members became confident in reprising their roles for the sequel, including Jack Black and Chris Pratt. Alongside the major success of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, Mario helped spark a wave of video game film adaptations and TV series with some being natural and others being intensely awkward. This has also been going in the other direction, with films serving as the inspiration for games more frequently than in the past.
As part of the announcement on March 10, 2024, Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri confirmed that The Super Mario Bros 2 Movie is in pre-production and that the animation phase will “begin soon,” though the release date is still far in the future.
What will The Super Mario Bros 2 Movie be about?
Illumination nor Nintendo has revealed details of The Super Mario Bros 2 Movie’s plot.
Since the film is still so early in development, it’s doubtful either company could even provide much detail. Even if they did, film plots tend to change a lot during production. However, there’s a lot of lore in the Mario universe that could be focused on by a sequel.
Jack Black proposed the idea of a musical sequel titled “Bowser’s Revenge.” If a serious film like 2019’s Joker can have a musical sequel, fans don’t see any issue with the family-friendly Super Mario Bros sequel having some song and dance. Alternatively, the story may expand to include elements of the wider Mario lore, such as Rosalina and the Lumas. Either way, Mario fans still have a lot to look forward to.
