With classic oblivious timing, Nintendo chose 10 March – or Mar10 day, as the company likes to style it – to announce that it is working with Illumination Studios on another Mario movie, even though it was the Oscars that day and absolutely nobody was paying attention. Last year's Mario movie was a smash hit, grossing 1bn and finally ending the long era of the cursed video game film adaptation once and for all, so it's not surprising that another one is in the works for April 2026. What is surprising is that it's not necessarily going to be a direct sequel. Co-directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and writer Matthew Fogel will return, but neither Nintendo nor Illumination committed to calling the new film a sequel. In a video broadcast announcing "a new animated film based on the world of Super Mario Bros", Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto (that's Mario's dad) said: "This time, we're thinking about broadening Mario's world further, and it'll have a bright and fun story."

Link is moving from Hyrule to Hollywood. Coming off the $1.3 billion success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Nintendo announced Wednesday that it's working on a live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda. The video game developer said that although it "will take time" until the movie hits theaters, it will be helmed by Maze Runner director Wes Ball and be co-financed by Sony. The news sent gamers on a dream-casting spree, and signaled the next big step in Nintendo's quest to evolve from a video game company into a full-blown entertainment empire. The Legend of Zelda is one of Nintendo's oldest and most beloved franchises, where a silent, twinky hero named Link battles the forces of evil (usually a maladjusted guy named Gannon/dorf) with the help of princess Zelda.

Nintendo just announced its highest first quarter profit ever thanks to sales of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. The company earned 185.44 billion yen ($1.3 billion) on sales of 461.34 billion yen ($3.2 billion), easily battering its previous fiscal Q1 record of 144.7 billion set in 2020, the company revealed in its latest earnings report. The numbers on those two properties are impressive. Around the world, 168.10 million people watched The Super Mario Bros. Movie, netting the company $1.349 billion as of July 26th -- the highest ever for an original film based on a video game, and the second-highest for an animated film. Meanwhile, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has sold 18.51 million copies since it launched in May, while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold 1.67 million units last quarter. "Sell-through of this one title [Zelda] constitutes approximately half of the first-party software sold this fiscal year," Nintendo said.

The Monitor is a weekly column devoted to everything happening in the WIRED world of culture, from movies to memes, TV to Twitter. The Super Mario Bros. Movie introduces its namesake duo with a commercial. It's Brooklyn, before they get sucked into the Mushroom Kingdom, and they've made a local TV ad to hawk their plumbing skills. As a filmmaking tool, it's a near-perfect piece of exposition, establishing who the Mario brothers are in mere minutes. Most transmedia properties are about milking intellectual property for fun and profit.