The Super Mario Galaxy Movie arrives in Japan on 24th April, and Shigeru Miyamoto says the reaction has been harsher than he expected. That matters because the film is already a major commercial hit, so the split between box office strength and low-scoring reviews is impossible to ignore.
For players and fans who followed Nintendo’s first Mario film, this is the same old problem wearing a new coat. The movie has pulled in huge overseas business, but critics have been far less kind than audiences, and Miyamoto’s comments show he did not see that coming.
What Is The Super Mario Galaxy Movie?
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the follow-up discussed by Miyamoto in an interview with Famitsu ahead of its slightly delayed Japanese release. It launches there tomorrow, 24th April, and the film has already become the highest earning film of 2026 so far, with revenue passing $755 million-and-counting. That kind of performance means the movie has clearly connected with a broad audience, even if the critical response has gone the other way.
Miyamoto compared its situation to The Super Mario Bros. Movie in 2023, which also paired strong commercial performance with mixed reviews. He said, after Famitsu drew that comparison. For viewers, that tells you exactly where the film sits: it’s a crowd-pleaser in the broadest sense, but not the kind of adaptation that wins over reviewers looking for sharper writing or stronger structure.
Reviews, Box Office, and the Gap in Between
The numbers make the split hard to miss. Rotten Tomatoes lists The Super Mario Galaxy Movie at 49 percent with critics and 89 percent with audiences, while The Super Mario Bros. Movie sits at 59 percent with critics and 95 percent with audiences. Eurogamer’s Christian Donlan was even blunter, giving the film two stars and writing,
That’s a rough result for a film that clearly had commercial momentum behind it. Miyamoto said he thought the previous film’s reviews made sense, but he expected this one to escape the same treatment. Instead, he said it , and that reaction feels revealing: Nintendo may have built a hit, but it still hasn’t cracked the code for pleasing critics.
How The Film Took Shape
Miyamoto also talked about how the project came together, and the process sounds much stricter for the first film than for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. He said he spent nearly six years working with writer Matthew Vogel on the first film, and Vogel initially sent over plot outlines that the team had to redo several times because they “weren't quite right.” That kind of back-and-forth usually signals a studio trying to avoid the obvious trap of turning a game into a flat recap.
He explained that he didn’t think it would be interesting to simply adapt the game directly into a film, because games work as games and not as straight narrative transplants. In his words, That first movie eventually ended up following the same flow as the game, but Miyamoto said the earlier process left the team with a looser approach for this sequel. is the key line here, and it helps explain why this film may feel more open-ended than the first.
Fox McCloud’s Crossover Cameo
One of the more notable choices in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the appearance of Fox McCloud, who is voiced by Glen Powell. Miyamoto said Nintendo usually keeps strict rules about mixing brands, though he pointed out that Super Smash Bros. already exists as a brand-mixing exception. Here, he said,
That choice is interesting because it shows Nintendo loosening up its own guardrails for film. Fox McCloud’s presence doesn’t just function as a cameo for the sake of it; it also signals that Nintendo is more willing to treat its movie projects as a shared brand space, even if that approach would be harder to justify in a game. It’s a small move on paper, but it says a lot about where the company wants its screen adaptations to go.
What stands out most about The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the mismatch between audience appetite and critical patience. The box office run has been huge, the audience score is strong, and the film is already a major success by revenue. Even so, the low critic score, the two-star Eurogamer review, and Miyamoto’s surprise all point to the same thing: Nintendo can pack seats, but it still hasn’t made a Mario movie that critics embrace. For fans, that means the film is probably going to keep doing what the first one did best — drawing a crowd — while leaving the argument over quality very much alive.