Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel on hold due to the ongoing writer’s strike, says Chris Pratt

The ongoing writers’ strike has apparently put the sequel to the Super Mario Bros. movie on hold, according to the voice of Mario himself, Chris Pratt.

It won’t surprise you at all to learn that a sequel to the Super Mario Bros. movie from Universal, Nintendo, and Illumination is on the way, even if it hasn’t technically been officially announced yet. The reason why it’s not official official is because Pratt recently talked about the sequel in an interview with entertainment tonightbut with the caveat that script development is on hiatus due to the writers’ strike that currently has Hollywood on a very justified hiatus (thanks, eurogamer). “We’re in the middle of this writers’ strike, so everything has been stopped and suspended for the right reasons,” Pratt said in the interview.

“I really support the WGA and our writers,” he added. “When the negotiations are complete and the writers feel comfortable moving forward, then it’s time to start talking about what’s next.” Obviously, this tells us nothing about the movie itself, but again, not a huge surprise considering that a script will barely exist at that point.

There was always going to be a sequel, because as it stands, the movie has grossed $1.3 billion worldwide, making it the third highest-grossing animated film of all time. It’s just over $100 million short of Frozen 2, and the top spot belongs to the remake of The Lion King, which Disney wouldn’t call an animated movie, but we all know it is.

“We’re very grateful for the support,” Pratt said of the film’s success. “[It’s] It really amazes me how successful that movie has been. I mean, I expected people to love it the way I was excited about it, but it’s really multi-generational all over the world. The people love it. They love Mario… It’s such a fun, funny, cute, touching movie and, gosh, I can’t believe I’m a part of it.”

This stems from the recent report that a A Zelda movie could also be in the worksonce again, potentially a collaboration between Universal, Illumination, and Nintendo.