Nintendo delays reveal of Chris Pratt's ‘Mario voice’ until 2023

It's not every day that one of the most-anticipated movie of the year gets delayed, but unfortunately, that's where we are.

Yes, the Super Mario Bros. movie (not this one), which is totally a real thing set to release to a large worldwide audience, has been delayed to April 2023.

Hit a blue shell — If you're more surprised to hear that the movie was supposed to come out in 2022 — December, no less — then you aren't alone. Even more shocking is the tweet announcing the move from the official Nintendo of America Twitter account, which was apparently authored by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto himself. (No joke, I actually thought it was from a parody account at first.)

No offense to gaming giant Miyamoto, but if they actually interrupted what should be his lovely retirement (he's 69!) to get him to write a 200-character tweet about the damn Mario movie, he should stop returning management's calls.

An unlikely starman — Like most of the world, I'm just curious to hear how exactly powerhouse actor Chris Pratt is going to capture the essence of Mario through his voice performance. Will we hear the expected "yahoos" and "here we gos," or will his performance be offensive to Italian people everywhere? Unfortunately, we'll just have to wait until next year to find out.

To be fair to Pratt, let's not forget the rest of the reported voice cast, which also includes Jack Black as Bowser and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong. There's something very strange about imagining these colorful decades-old characters with the voices of surefire Hollywood A-listers, but that's sort of the name of the game when it comes to these video game movies.

Movies based on video games are nothing new — the original Super Mario Bros. movie from the early '90s is a trip unto itself — but they've been more successful in recent years. The Uncharted movie from earlier this year is currently the fourth highest-grossing film of 2022, and the two Sonic the Hedgehog movies have also performed well at the box office, too.