Nintendo and Illumination may have a mystery movie coming in 2028

If you haven’t been a big fan of Nintendo’s recent foray into major motion pictures, then the company may have a chance to redeem itself.

Following the recent release of the poorly reviewed but extremely financially lucrative The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, it looks like Nintendo’s partnership with the animation studio Illumination is set to continue in a couple of years.

Universal Pictures Spain uploaded a release schedule for the next few years to its website (courtesy of Kotaku) and, lo and behold, one of the upcoming movies is called “UNTITLED ILLUMINATION/NINTENDO EVENT FILM.”

That’s…probably not what it will actually be called, but with a tentative release date of April 12, 2028, they’ve got time to figure that part out.

Editor’s note: Spoilers for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie are ahead.

Well, would you look at that?
Credit: Screenshot: Universal Pictures Spain

Naturally, the internet is slightly abuzz with speculation about what this movie could be. Given that it’s only two years after the release of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, it’s reasonable to assume this is something else, though we should leave some space open for the possibility that this is just another Chris Pratt vehicle. (The Pratt-lead Super Mario Bros. movie came out in 2023, followed by Super Mario Galaxy in 2026, and a third is expected in 2029.)

For Nintendo fans, the most likely candidate is some kind of Donkey Kong animated feature starring Seth Rogen, who voiced the tie-wearing ape in The Super Mario Bros. Movie but was conspicuously absent from Galaxy. I’m not bringing this idea up out of nowhere, as there is already a copyright for an untitled Donkey Kong movie swirling around out there. Given that we just got a big Donkey Kong game for Switch 2, this would make a ton of sense.

Another less likely (but still worth mentioning) candidate is Star Fox.

The beloved but somewhat dormant Nintendo space dogfighting franchise just got a shot in the arm with the inclusion of protagonist Fox McCloud as a major character in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, voiced by Glen Powell.

Some recent reporting suggests Nintendo is looking to revive Star Fox through a new game, so maybe a spin-off movie for Powell could happen in a couple of years. Still, Donkey Kong feels more likely at this point in time.

Finally, we have to consider the possibility that the “UNTITLED ILLUMINATION/NINTENDO EVENT FILM” is a mistake, a re-release, or something similarly anticlimactic.

One thing we can rule out is the upcoming live-action The Legend of Zelda movie, which just wrapped production. That’s already set for a 2027 release, and obviously, as a live-action movie, it wouldn’t be done by Illumination. In fact, it’s not even a Universal release, as Sony is handling that one.

Hopefully, whatever this ends up being is better than the first two animated Mario movies.