A showdown between Mickey Mouse and Mario might not’ve been on your 2023 bingo card, but following the unprecedented success of Nintendo/Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), it seems like the House of Mouse might’ve finally found their match.

Universal’s distribution of The Super Mario Bros. Movie arrived in theaters on April 5 to staggering success at the worldwide box office. Many initially doubted the film’s success due in part to the ongoing controversy surrounding its cast of vocal talent—namely, Chris Pratt, a non-Italian who was chosen to play the eponymous hero. Critics also review-bombed the movie ahead of its opening night, with many voicing their opinions about its “generic” storyline and inaccessibility to non-gamers.
However, The Super Mario Bros. Movie proved skeptics wrong both financially and critically. It recently crossed $700 million globally at the box office and is well-positioned to break the $1 billion mark—a hugely impressive feat for an animated movie and a video game adaptation, at that.

With this in mind, the team behind the movie, Nintendo and Illumination execs Shigeru Miyamoto and Chris Meledandri, opened up about Mario’s longstanding legacy and explained why the character could become a surprising rival to Disney and its beloved mascot, Mickey.
Speaking with Screen Rant, Miyamoto noted that there was a time when he felt the early 80s jumpman could actually rival Disney’s iconic Mickey Mouse:
There was a time when Mario was compared with Mickey Mouse. And at the time, I thought that Mickey Mouse was 40 years older than Mario, so he had no chance. But Mickey Mouse has evolved through the evolution of animation and, in that same sense, we have the idea that Mario then is going to evolve through a digital medium. With every new technology and hardware that we put out, there’s a Mario game created that was part of that evolutionary process.

Meledandri continued, expanding on Mario’s “relatability” and how the character fueled brand recognition, becoming the de-facto face of Nintendo:
We try to put clear and simple thoughts behind something that is actually a phenomenon. It has so many different factors involved so, on one hand, we could talk about his relatability; we could talk about his everyman qualities; we could talk about his perseverance. But you could then talk about that nose or that mustache, or you could then look at all of these things and go, “It’s really as much about the excellence of the games, and what role they play in introducing gameplay in ways that were totally fresh and exciting.” Or you could talk about a spirit that resides inside of Miyamoto-san that extends into Mario. It’s one of these great questions, but I find it very hard to reduce down to a simple answer.

The Super Mario Bros. has undeniable potential to develop into a full-on movie franchise. With so many fan-favorite characters left to introduce, including Yoshi and Princess Daisy, there’s endless possibilities for where the story could go next. Viewers were also treated to a post-credits scene that showed Yoshi’s egg hatching, meaning a sequel is imminent.
Mario and Luigi aside, a successful collaboration between Illumination and Nintendo is auspicious, considering there are so many video game IPs that could be adapted to the big screen: The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, and Metroid, to name a few. The iconic plumber will always retain his all-star status among the different Nintendo franchises, but there’s certainly room for the partnering studios to expand past The Super Mario Bros.

Meanwhile, Disney is gasping for air after being sunken by a string of less-than-dazzling live-action remakes and animated box office bombs. While the upcoming Halle Bailey-led The Little Mermaid (2023) could easily be a smash hit for the studio, Disney’s original “wow” factor seems to have been wiped away, with the illusion being shattered for millions of fans thanks to box office flops like 2022’s Strange World.

Nintendo could prove to be an unexpected nightmare for Disney moving forward. However, it’ll be interesting to see if The Super Mario Bros. can assure some level of longstanding success past the initial hype of the first movie. Disney Studios has the benefit of both time and legacy, being nearly 40 years older than Mario. But if Disney can’t clean up its act with its slate of upcoming theatrical releases, Nintendo/Illumination could be closing in on its popularity—and soon.
Would you be excited to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie extend into a Nintendo franchise? Let us know in the comments below.