After the critical and commercial failure of the 1993 film, Nintendo was reluctant to license its intellectual properties for film adaptations. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto became interested in developing another Mario film when Nintendo was bringing its older games to the Virtual Console service, and through Nintendo's work with Universal Parks & Resorts to create Mario-based attractions he met Illumination founder Chris Meledandri. By 2016, the two were discussing a Mario film, and in January 2018 Nintendo announced that it would collaborate with Illumination and Universal to produce it. Production was underway by 2020.
