The Super Mario Bros. Movie made history with its impressive box office number of $1.36 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 2023 and the highest-grossing Illumination film of all time. This is no surprise considering the immense popularity of its source material: the world-famous Super Mario franchise. Now, a sequel is in the works, and in an interview with Men’s Journal, Keegan-Michael Key revealed new details about The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2. The Key and Peele actor said that the sequel would expand the Mario brothers’ world to include interesting bits of lore seen in old games of the franchise.
“I feel like what they’ve done creatively is they’ve really widened out the universe that these characters live in and we’re going to meet some new folks. We’re going to meet some new folks that are old favorites and some folks that I think are really deep cuts, but because of the way the story’s laying itself out right now, those characters are going to be very intriguing.”
Key also voiced his excitement for the new batch of Easter eggs in the sequel that will try to rival the plethora of references in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. We already know from the stinger at the end of the first movie that Yoshi will make his debut in the sequel.
The first film served as a cinematic introduction to Mario’s world and the colorful cast of characters within it. The Player One’s and Player Two’s were all there, like Mario voiced by Chris Pratt, Luigi voiced by Charlie Day, Princess Peach voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy, Bowser voiced by Jack Black, and Toad voiced by Keegan-Michael Key. However, it certainly sounds like the sequel plans to expand on this foundation and include even more fun surprises for fans of the games.
Who or What Could Show up in Super Mario Bros. 2?
There are plenty more main-stay Mario characters that fans would love to see get their time on the big screen in the sequel, like Wario, Waluigi, Bowser Jr. or Lakitu, but there are even more obscure characters from the many games and shows of the Mario franchise. The often-forgotten characters that we would love to see in the expansion include the likes of Oogtar, Professor E. Gadd, 6. Mushbert, and more. Clearly, there is plenty for the Super Mario Bros. 2 filmmakers to mine from.
Could we see a reference to Super Mario 64 with the inclusion of the nightmare-inducing Mad Piano? Or maybe there will be a mention of the hidden boss Culex from Super Mario RPG, which Nintendo recently remade. Perhaps we’ll see an appearance of Redneck Kong, a character only seen on the select screen for Diddy Kong Pilot and was replaced by Candy Kong in the game. Whoever or whatever they add to the cinematic world of Mario and his friends, we know the fans will be there to enjoy watching their childhood heroes, and villains, realized on the big screen.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2
is set to release on April 3rd, 2026.