Universal postpones release dates for "Super Mario Bros." and "Puss in Boots"

Originally scheduled for release on December 21, Illumination's animated feature film "Super Mario Bros." has been pushed back to April 7, 2023, in North America. In Japan, the film will be released on April 28.

The postponement was announced by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto himself via Nintendo of America's Twitter account.

Miyamoto. After consulting with my partner in the illumination of the "Super Mario Bros." movie, Chris-san (producer Chris Meledandri), we have decided to postpone the worldwide release to spring 2023 (April 28 in Japan and April 7 in North America). We are very sorry, but we promise it will be well worth the wait.

While some fans may be disappointed by the postponement, others find solace in Miyamoto's famous words, allegedly uttered when "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" was postponed in 1998:

A delayed game will eventually be good, but a rushed game will forever be bad.

Mario's postponement means a second important anime release in fall 2022, postponed in recent days. The other postponement is Sony's sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which has been moved from an October 7 release to June 2, 2023.

Universal will fill the hole left by Mario's postponement with DreamWorks Animation's Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, which will be released on December 21. Originally, the sequel to the popular 2011 film "Shrek" was scheduled to be released on September 23.