The Super Mario Bros. film has been delayed to April 2023

Time Stamp: April 26, 2022 4:41 AM

Shigeru Miyamoto has hijacked the Nintendo social media accounts to announce that the Super Mario Bros. film has been pushed back to Spring 2023 – specifically 7th April in North America and 28th April in Japan. I guess we’ll have to wait a little bit longer to savour Jack Black’s take on Bowser…

Originally planned for a late 2022 release, we’ve seen or heard basically nothing about the movie since Nintendo unveiled the all-star cast of actors that would be stepping into the Mario series’ many iconic roles. It’s already been five years since Illumination and Nintendo signed on the dotted line, but there’s been not so much as a teaser trailer released, and nobody knows what (if anything) Chris Pratt is going to be doing with his voice.

The announcement of Chris Pratt as Mario drew sighs from across the industry, given how widely used he’s been. He obviously stars in Guardians of the Galaxy and the climactic Avengers films, he’s also in the Jurassic World franchise, and (perhaps most relevant for an animated production) The LEGO Movie – he’s also going to be Garfield in another animated role. Will Mario make him stretch his acting skills, or will he just get to apply his usual schtick to the role?

Alongside him, Anya Taylor-Joy of Queen’s Gambit fame will be Princess Peach, while Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor Charlie Day will be Luigi, Jack Black will be Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key will play Toad and Seth Rogen with be thumping his chest as Donkey Kong.

The delay will, at least, give Illumination time to prepare their challenger for the biggest video game movie adaptation. Nintendo will be hoping the film follows in the footsteps of the hit Detective Pikachu movie that delighted fans of the Pokémon franchise when it released in 2019. It was a huge box office hit and showed Nintendo (via The Pokémon company) what modern animations and adaptations can achieve. However, Mario will now have to try and beat the records being set by his early 90’s rival, Sonic.

After a successful debut in early film 2020, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 released earlier this month and smashed box office records for the biggest opening weekend for a video game movie.

Source: Twitter

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