Pushing Buttons: Nintendo is making a new Mario movie – and I have an idea to make it better than the last one
With classic oblivious timing, Nintendo chose 10 March – or Mar10 day, as the company likes to style it – to announce that it is working with Illumination Studios on another Mario movie, even though it was the Oscars that day and absolutely nobody was paying attention. Last year’s Mario movie was a smash hit, grossing $1bn and finally ending the long era of the cursed video game film adaptation once and for all, so it’s not surprising that another one is in the works for April 2026.
What is surprising is that it’s not necessarily going to be a direct sequel. Co-directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and writer Matthew Fogel will return, but neither Nintendo nor Illumination committed to calling the new film a sequel. In a video broadcast announcing “a new animated film based on the world of Super Mario Bros”, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto (that’s Mario’s dad) said: “This time, we’re thinking about broadening Mario’s world further, and it’ll have a bright and fun story.”
Despite its runaway popularity, the Mario movie did not impress film critics, who were in many cases extremely mean to it. Jack Black, who put in an undeniably spirited performance as Bowser (the same can’t be said for Seth Rogen’s Donkey Kong, alas), was moved to defend it in a recent interview with Total Film magazine: “They screened it for me a month before it hit theatres. I’m laughing and smiling the whole way through this movie. And then it came out and it got horrible reviews. I was like, ‘What movie did they see?’”
I thought the film was fine –safe, commercial, lightly boring child-friendly entertainment that did at least manage to avoid actively ruining the legacy of the games it was based on. It’s very far from terrible, and I’m speaking as someone who’s suffered through more terrible video game movies than most. But there’s still a lot that could be done better, and I’m hoping that a sequel will be an opportunity to build on the first movie rather than wringing out the same old Mario iconography and nostalgic sound-effects until they are as dry as Kalimari Desert.
There’s plenty of Mario’s – forgive me – extended universe that we didn’t see in the first movie; for one thing, there was no Yoshi and no Wario (and, if we’re going for the deep cuts, no Birdo). But another parade of characters and references is not what we need from the next film. I’d love to see something a bit more like Detective Pikachu, which is situated within the recognisable world of Pokémon but does its own thing within it. You know, something with a plot.
Mario is not exactly known for its plot – as a game, it is almost entirely vibes based, and for decades Miyamoto and Nintendo’s other lead creatives were extremely suspicious of cut-scenes and other un-game-y storytelling techniques borrowed from the film industry. But Mario’s lack of lore could be an advantage, because it gives film-makers the opportunity to bring something new to it, something more suited to linear media. Plenty of awful video game films are awful precisely because they get bogged down in plot or background detail that gamers have 30 hours to immerse themselves in. Mario has none of that, and you’d hope it wouldn’t be too difficult for Illumination and Nintendo to come up with a good story set in the Mario universe that didn’t simply function as an excuse to introduce 35 different longlost Mario characters at a rapid clip.
There’s also the possibility of taking Mario out of the Mushroom Kingdom, as the games have been doing for a while: a film based around Mario Galaxy could make for a real visual spectacle. But there’s plenty left to explore on Mario’s home turf. With such an enormous hit behind them, I’m cautiously optimistic that they’ll be a little more ambitious with it next time.
What to play
A recommendation from Keith this week, because I am currently playing something I’m not allowed to talk about.
He says: “Fed up with driving games that want you to tear about the place at breakneck speed? The oddly named Expeditions: A Mudrunner Game is the sim for you. Here you drive a selection of burly off-road vehicles through swampy woods and slurpy quagmires, lowering your tyre pressure or using a winch to get as much purchase as possible. Unlike the previous two games in
Saber Interactive’s slow-moving series, you’re not carrying out endless fetch quests – instead you’re exploring larger landscapes, trying not to disappear bumper-first into a bottomless bog. It’s ridiculously tough in places, but also fun and rewarding, providing much more of a cerebral challenge than your average arcade road racer.”
Available on: PC, PS4/5, Xbox, SwitchEstimated playtime: 30+ hours
What to read
The WSJ reports that ex-Activision boss Bobby Kotick is trying to get a group of investors together to buy TikTok, in the event that US lawmakers force its Chinese owners to sell it. Why can’t anyone pleasant ever end up in charge of channels of mass communication?
Some workers at Toyota have made a rideable Pokémon in real life. Their robotic version of Pokémon Scarlet’s motorcycle-like mascot Miraidon is, alas, unlikely to make it out of the prototype stage, but doesn’t it look like a vehicle straight out of a 90s anime?
The nominations for this year’s Bafta games awardsare out: last year was packed with standouts, but it will surprise nobody to learn that Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (pictured) and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 all feature heavily, alongside smaller-scale hits such as Dave the Diver, Viewfinder and Cocoon.
What to click
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Question Block
Reader John has a question regarding Sony and Microsoft, off the back of this Pushing Buttons issue about the console wars:
“PS5 has way more exclusives than Xbox which means it’sstopping more players from enjoyingmore games. Sowhyis Microsoft considered a greedy megacorp but not Sony?”
Sony is also a corporation with many tendrils. At the end of the day, no company is a friend, no matter how diehard fans feel about them – they exist to make money, and as players we hope that they do so by making things that are wonderful and that succeed by being enjoyable pieces of art and entertainment. When it comes to Microsoft and Sony, for me, it is a question of scale.
Sony’s entire business is worth $109bn, and its games business is part of that. Nintendo is worth $65bn, for context, and its only business is games. Microsoft is worth over $3tn. That makes it an uneven playing field, giving Microsoft the ability to weather losses or buy out the competition on a scale that none of its competitors could dream of. It would be the same with Meta, Amazon or Google: any company that is so phenomenally rich as to be insulated from failure is one that has the potential to upset the balance of an industry, creative or otherwise.