LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 01: Anya Taylor-Joy attends a Special Screening of Universal Pictures' "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" at Regal LA Live on April 01, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a love letter to Mario, while its sequel serves as a broader celebration of Nintendo. The 98-minute film was released on April 3, 2026. The movie hides references to games in almost every frame. Here are some examples of them.
One of the most direct game references is the film opening at the Comet Observatory. This is the world from the 2007 Wii game, with Rosalina (Brie Larson) reading bedtime stories to the Lumas. The first major villain to appear is Megaleg, one of the first from Super Mario Galaxy.
Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie) makes his debut, breaking out the Magic Paintbrush as his weapon of choice from the 2002 game Super Mario Sunshine. Its powers include elements of the Wonder Flower from Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Professor E. Gadd from Luigi’s Mansion is also on Kamek’s coffee mug, maybe teasing a potential spin-off.
The movie relies heavily on the video game Super Mario Odyssey. Mario and Luigi roll through Tostarena Town on dirt bikes using Mario Kart-style tricks. The Inverted Pyramid appears in the film alongside the Tostarenans, who populate the desert. Bowser Jr. traps Mario and Peach inside an obstacle course system called “Bowser OS.”
The big moment for Fox McCloud is when he arrives as a pilot to take the group on a journey across space; no one wants to go otherwise. He gets an instant origin story in a fast-paced anime-style sequence which explains how he crashed into the Mario universe after his Arwing’s warp drive went haywire — and Slippy was blamed again, obviously.
In a post-credits scene, it is confirmed that Fox originates from another dimension, so this opens up the opportunity to do a stand-alone Star Fox movie and also implies that Illumination and Nintendo have far bigger plans than just developing the Star Fox franchise.
What you see here does little to represent what could have been done. In a very small and memorable moment, we get an appearance by Mr. Game & Watch as he briefly appears on screen with Luigi while using his magic paint brush, which causes Luigi to unknowingly summon the 2D icon during the final battle. While in the hangar, we also get a rocket spilling out a bunch of Pikmin to the sounds of their well-known theme song. Then, after the credits roll, we get Princess Daisy, who sets up all that can be anticipated from this point forward regarding an unmistakable Nintendo Cinematic Universe.
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