Production was underway by 2020, and the cast was announced in September 2021.

By 2016, the two were discussing a Mario film and, in January 2018, Nintendo announced that it would produce it with Illumination and Universal. Through Nintendo's work with Universal Parks & Resorts to create Super Nintendo World, he met with the Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri. The Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, became interested in developing another film. (1993), Nintendo became reluctant to license its intellectual properties for film adaptations. The film features an origin story for the brothers Mario and Luigi, Italian-American plumbers who are transported to an alternate world and become entangled in a battle between the Mushroom Kingdom, led by Princess Peach, and the Koopas, led by Bowser.Īfter the critical and commercial failure of the live-action film Super Mario Bros. The ensemble voice cast includes Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, and Fred Armisen. Universal, the film was directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and written by Matthew Fogel. Produced by Universal Pictures, Illumination, and Nintendo, and distributed by Movie is a 2023 American computer-animated adventure film based on Nintendo's Mario video game franchise.