By India McCarty
THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE is officially the first movie of 2026 to cross the $1 billion mark at the box office.
“After this weekend, GALAXY stands at $428.5 million at the domestic box office and $571.5 million internationally,” The Hollywood Reporter shared.
The movie is following in the footsteps of its predecessor; THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE made over $1.3 billion at the box office. These numbers make the MARIO franchise the fifth-biggest animated franchise domestically.
A third movie is already in the works. So, what can fans expect from the next installment in the franchise?
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“Right off the bat, I’ll say that unlike something like Super Smash Bros., I don’t think you’ll have a situation [where] all Nintendo characters would be joining,” Nintendo producer Shigeru Miyamoto told Polygon, referring to a popular Nintendo game that sees characters from different games teaming up.
Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri explained that the moviemakers’ process for MARIO movies is not as detailed and long-term as people might think.
“It’s much more geared toward conversations about what would be fun within a certain scene in the movie,” he said. “So these ideas come up based on, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be fun if the Pikmin appeared here? Wouldn’t that be fun?’ And then that conversation, if we agree that it’s a fun idea, then we look to Miyamoto-san to just make his own judgment about whether or not it feels right to him, but it’s much more incidental than strategic.”
Miyamoto added that, after working on SUPER MARIO GALAXY, he “realized how varied and multi-talented the MARIO cast is…We have plenty of characters to create a movie, and yet we wanted to add a little bit of spice, a little bit of secret cameos here and there. And you’ll see that there’s one secret character that plays a big role.”
“I think there might be introductions of characters like this potentially in the future, something like that,” he continued.
Some of the MARIO cast have already shared their hopes for future movies. Charlie Day, who voices Luigi, told ScreenRant, he “would be thrilled to do Luigi’s Mansion, just because it’s such a fun game. And not that you would make it like a horror movie for kids, but it could have some more sort of jump scares in it, which would be fun.”
“It does seem like it would make a great movie, but I am not — they don’t put me in charge of movie studios and for good reason. I got no idea,” he joked.
It looks like MARIO fans will just have to wait and see what a third movie will have in store.
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