In recent years, as we all know, many movies have been hit with delays, such as Top Gun: Maverick, which releases this year (2022) as opposed to its original date of 2019. Another upcoming film has also suffered a notable delay.
Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Day star in Super Mario Bros. / Picture Credits (l-r): Universal Pictures, Focus Features, New Line Cinema
Super Mario Bros. was scheduled to release in December of this year, but has unfortunately been delayed for around four months to April, 2023.
Many features have been pushed back in the past two years, mainly due to complications caused by the global pandemic. However, now it seems less to do with the Coronavirus, and more to do with making sure each film, especially animations, are done right.
While the world of Mario has been made into a film more than once before, the upcoming feature may be the most star-studded one to-date.
The stellar cast includes Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World franchises) as Mario himself, with Charlie Day (Horrible Bosses, Fist Fight) to star as his brother, Luigi.
Other cast members include Anya Taylor-Joy (Last Night in Soho), Jack Black (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), Keegan-Michael Key (The Bubble), Fred Armisen (Easy A), and Seth Rogan (Bad Neighbours).
While Super Mario Bros. has been in talks for a while, last year (2021) seemed to bear witness to the project moving forward in regard to development as the cast was revealed.
The movie was intended to release during the holidays this December, which would be perfect timing as children will likely be off school, allowing the film to make a decent profit.
Nintendo has announced that Super Mario Bros. will now release in 2023, premiering in North America on April 7th, and in Japan on April 28th. As well as the delay, it has recently been revealed that Puss in Boots: The Last Wish will take the movie’s spot on December 23rd, 2022.
While the reason for the delay isn’t clear at the moment, a decent assumption would be that the studio simply needs more time to perfect the animation, or may require some cast members to return for re-reads.
This delay also means that Puss in Boots: The Last Wish will be competing against the likes of Avatar 2 and Shazam: Fury of the Gods, which are rather big titles.
Now that the feature has been moved back, it’s likely that we will not see any first look images, trailers, or even updates for some time. However, this does mean that the creative team will likely be working on making Super Mario Bros. the best it can be.
Written by Melissa, who you can follow on Twitter @melissajournal
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