The sequel goes cosmic: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is official
Forty years after Super Mario Bros. hit Japan on September 13, 1985, Nintendo used its September Direct to put a name on the biggest follow-up in gaming cinema. The sequel to the 2023 box-office smash now has a title: the Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Shigeru Miyamoto introduced the name on stream and confirmed the creative team from the first film is back—directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, screenwriter Matthew Fogel, and composer Brian Tyler.
The voice cast returns intact. Chris Pratt is back as Mario, with Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek. It’s the same mix that drew families in 2023, a film that turned a video game adaptation into a global event. Keegan-Michael Key has already hinted this chapter will be “broader in scope,” with familiar faces and “deep cuts” for longtime fans.
The choice of “Galaxy” isn’t subtle. Expect a jump from Mushroom Kingdom streets to starlit platforms, cosmic trouble, and gravity-bending set pieces that mirror the energy of the Wii-era games. That opens the door to characters and motifs that fans associate with the Galaxy sub-series—starry orchestration, Lumas, and the awe that powered those levels. Nintendo showed no footage, but the title alone sets expectations for scale.
Release timing is locked in. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie lands in U.S. theaters on April 3, 2026, followed by Japan on April 24, 2026. That puts the film squarely in the spring window, a clean runway for family audiences after the holiday rush. It also gives Nintendo and Illumination a long tail for marketing, merch, and park tie-ins leading into summer travel season.
The title reveal ends months of guesswork. In May, an NBCUniversal listing briefly labeled the sequel “Super Mario World” before it vanished. Today’s announcement erases that placeholder and signals a shift from earthbound adventure to interstellar spectacle. With the team and cast returning, the big open questions now are story focus, the balance of comedy and action, and how heavily it leans into Galaxy-era music and imagery.
There’s a lot riding on it. The first film, released in 2023, reset expectations for game adaptations with a monster global gross and a family-first tone. Bringing Brian Tyler back suggests more of that orchestral lift, weaving in Koji Kondo’s iconic themes while pushing the score into space-faring territory. And by planting a flag this early with a title and dates, Nintendo is clearly building a multi-quarter runway for reveals—teaser, full trailer, soundtrack drops, and final merch waves—through 2025.
Galaxy games return to Switch as a two-pack, and Nintendo maps a cross-gen year
To match the film’s name, Nintendo is relaunching the source material. Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 arrive as a bundled release on Nintendo Switch on October 2, 2025, in both physical and digital formats. For many fans, this is the modern debut they’ve been waiting for—especially for Galaxy 2, which skipped the 2020 Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection and has been stuck on legacy hardware.
The timing is strategic. Dropping the Galaxy bundle in early October gives Nintendo a premium platformer to anchor the holiday lineup, with months to spare before the film hits theaters. It’s the kind of one-two punch the company likes: a classic catalog play to refresh the brand, followed by a mass-market movie to pull in new audiences. Expect a marketing loop where the games fuel hype for the movie and the movie pushes curious families back to the games.
Controls will be watched closely. On Wii, Galaxy leaned on a pointer and motion for star bits and certain actions. Nintendo solved some of that in the 3D All-Stars version of Galaxy with Joy-Con pointing and touch input, and players will look to see how those ideas carry over—and whether handheld play gets a smoother, more precise option. If the bundle supports both the current Switch and the next-gen hardware, the handling and performance differences could become part of the pitch.
That leads to the broader roadmap. Nintendo used this Direct to outline a slate that spans the current Switch and its successor, commonly nicknamed “Switch 2.” The message is simple: your existing system is still getting games through 2025 and beyond, while cross-gen titles bridge the gap. Nintendo has played this hand before—The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild launched across Wii U and Switch to ease the transition—and a Galaxy two-pack is a tidy way to do it again for platformers.
Beyond the marquee news, the Direct carried the tone of an anniversary year. Super Mario Bros. turned 40 this month, and the company leaned into that history lesson without slipping into museum mode. Expect pop-up celebrations, themed accessories, and plenty of retro nods across marketing beats as the calendar marches toward the movie’s April dates. The Galaxy games give that celebration a playable spine, not just nostalgia montages.
The schedule also clues us in on how Nintendo likes to pace reveals. With no footage shown for the film, the next likely beat is a teaser—holiday 2025 is a prime slot—followed by a full trailer at the top of 2026. That would mirror the company’s careful, event-driven style: name the project, seed the theme with a game release, then escalate to footage once the audience has Galaxy back in their hands.
For families, this is a frictionless on-ramp: a clean way to catch up on the Galaxy era, then walk into a theater six months later already fluent in its starry vocabulary. For longtime players, the draw is different: finally seeing Galaxy 2 properly preserved on a modern system, ideally with crisp performance and control tweaks that respect muscle memory.
If you’re tracking the business side, the signals are clear. Nintendo is stacking synergistic content around its most durable brand, using a cross-gen year to smooth hardware transition while keeping the Switch’s massive install base engaged. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie carries the blockbuster banner, the Galaxy bundle keeps the console audience busy, and the 40th anniversary adds the emotional hook they can market all the way through spring.
