The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Gives Us Some Hints at the Next Projects in the Nintendo Cinematic Universe

Several scenes at the end of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie have revealed hints on what’s next for Nintendo and Illumination. With the original 2013 Super Mario Bros. movie grossing over $1.3 billion at the box office and this sequel already breaking records of its own, the third film in the Super Mario franchise would seem to be inevitable. Speculation for the possible threequel has been rampant since well before The Super Mario Galaxy Movie released in theaters on April 1. Nintendo has not yet announced its plans for what comes after this fan-favorite second installment in the series, and we likely won’t hear anything official for a long time given that it took about a year after the first movie for the sequel to be announced. Still, that can’t stop us from following the breadcrumbs for where the Super Mario movies are going. (Warning: Spoilers ahead.)

What’s coming next after The Super Mario Galaxy Movie?

The most obvious follow-up to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie would be a third film in the Super Mario franchise that features Princess Daisy, who appears in the post-credits scene punching the lights out of a thieving Ukiki at the Gateway Galaxy port. Though she isn’t voiced, the implication is obvious that this popular Mario character will be making an appearance in the next major Mario film. The ending of the first film showed a Yoshi egg in between several green warp pipes and that was addressed in the first few scenes of the sequel, with the green dinosaur joining Mario and Luigi on their adventure.

However, where Yoshi mainly goes along for the ride in the sequel, Daisy comes with a more tangible thread to follow. First introduced in the game Super Mario Land in 1989, she is the princess of the kingdom of Sarasaland who Mario rescues from an alien named Tatanga. This plotline could be played out in a similar way in the threequel, especially now that she has seemingly had no trouble finding her way to the Gateway Galaxy.

Since Daisy is a fellow princess, it could be uncovered that she has some kind of cosmic connection with Princess Peach and Princess Rosalina, which the film reveals are sisters who were born from stardust. Perhaps Daisy is another relative of theirs; she certainly has their spunk. Beyond that, the Mario game universe has established her as a budding love interest for Luigi, which could lead to some fun teasing from Mario (in the same way that Luigi pokes fun of Mario for his wooing of Princess Peach).

As far as when we might expect this third Super Mario film, Bowser’s voice actor Jack Black said in an interview with Cinemex, “Don’t be surprised if you hear that coming out next time. It’s good. In 2029.” That’s of course more speculation than it is confirmation, but it would make sense that it would take three years to see the threequel given the three-year gap between the first two movies.

Potential spin-offs featuring other Mario characters could be in the works

The other potential follow-up would be a spin-off featuring Fox McCloud, who effectively steals the show in the second half (in fact, some fans are grumbling that he has more screentime than Rosalina does). The film goes through the trouble of introducing the hotshot pilot with a short montage that shows his fellow squadmates — Falco, Slippy, and Peppy — something that really didn’t need to be shown unless they were thinking about a full-fledged Star Fox movie. A mid-credits scene shows that Fox was able to fix the warp drive component on his ship, so that he can finally return to his home system of Lylat. More importantly, the film opens up the possibility for a Nintendo Cinematic Universe (not unlike the Marvel and DC Cinematic Universes), where any substantial cameos can be turned into feature-length offshoots.

In fact, before a Star Fox film comes to fruition, it’s more likely that Donkey Kong will get his own movie first, despite him only making a small cameo in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie during Yoshi’s tour of the human world. In May 2025, Nintendo and Universal Pictures laid the groundwork for an “untitled Donkey Kong Project” by registering it at the U.S. Copyright Office with the description of it being a motion picture. Seth Rogen, Donkey Kong’s voice actor, said in an 2023 interview with ScreenRant that he thought the Donkey Kong Country games would be great to mine for material for a potential spinoff. He isn’t wrong, and most of DK’s family like Cranky, Diddy, Dixie, Chunky, Funky, and Swanky were all already seen in the first Super Mario film. The recent success of Donkey Kong Bonanza for Switch 2 shows that he’s one of the most popular characters outside of Mario brothers too.

Beyond that, SuperHeroHype reports a rumor that Nintendo and Illumination has five more movies in the works, including ones for Luigi’s Mansion, Pikmin, Yoshi, Kirby, and Super Smash Bros. We have already explained why a Super Smash Bros. film likely won’t happen, in part because Nintendo has a lot of universes to expand upon before a movie about the fighting franchise can be adapted properly. As for the other rumored films, a Pikmin movie feels limited in scope, while Kirby would be best introduced in a mainline Mario Bros. film before he ever gets his own spinoff. Either way, Illumination and Universal Pictures will need to see how well a Donkey Kong or Star Fox solo venture (not to mention the live-action Legend of Zelda film too) will fare at the box office first.

Source: Comingsoon.net