Well, everyone’s favorite plumber won’t be returning to the big screen in 2022. 

On Monday, Nintendo announced that the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie won’t release until April 7, 2023, in North America. Originally, the film was coming out on Dec. 21, 2022, but was delayed for unexplained reasons. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto broke the news on Nintendo of America’s social media account in a rather bizarre move.

“This is Miyamoto. After consulting with Chris-san, my partner at Illumination on the Super Mario Bros. film, we decided to move the global release to Spring 2023–April 28 in Japan and April 7 in North America,” Miyamoto said on Twitter. “My deepest apologies, but I promise it will be well worth the wait.”

There is no way that I can adequately articulate how unintentionally hilarious “this is Miyamoto” is as an opener for opening this announcement. It’s even funnier than the response to Chris Pratt being cast as Mario.

This is Miyamoto. After consulting with Chris-san, my partner at Illumination on the Super Mario Bros. film, we decided to move the global release to Spring 2023–April 28 in Japan and April 7 in North America. My deepest apologies but I promise it will be well worth the wait.

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) April 26, 2022

In fairness, there are enough terrible video game movies as is. If Nintendo and Illumination need more time, then power to them. 

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has undoubtedly raised the bar in terms of how successful these sorts of adaptations can be if done right. Nintendo certainly doesn’t want this new Super Mario Bros. film to go down in infamy like the live-action movie from the 1990s.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.