Miyamoto Calls Backlash Against Super Mario Galaxy Movie Baffling

Shigeru Miyamoto said the backlash to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie left him puzzled, even as Nintendo’s latest film kept turning into a box office machine. In a Japanese media group interview on April 22, 2026, Miyamoto said he had understood some of the criticism aimed at The Super Mario Bros. Movie, but he expected the sequel to land better. Instead, he said the reaction was “even harsher” and called it “quite baffling.”

That gap between reception and revenue is now one of the clearest signals of how Nintendo’s film strategy is being tested outside game development. The movie was sitting at $629 million worldwide and $308.1 million domestically by April 12, 2026, after a $69 million second weekend in the United States and Canada. It opened to $190 million in its first five days and $372.5 million globally, with a reported production budget of $110 million. Yet the response split sharply, with Rotten Tomatoes figures cited at 43% from critics and 89% from audiences.

For Nintendo workers, the tension is not just about one movie’s reviews. It shows how the company is reading fan feedback as it moves a legacy franchise from consoles into theaters, where audience enthusiasm, critic skepticism, and brand stewardship do not always line up. Miyamoto said Nintendo and its partners were trying to help revitalize the film industry after crossing over from another medium, and he suggested the people who should be championing that effort seemed to be taking a passive stance.

Miyamoto also pointed to the Japanese release as a separate pressure point. He said the Japanese version was rewritten specifically in Japanese rather than simply localized from the English script, and that he felt pressure not to disappoint Illumination CEO and co-producer Chris Meledandri if the film underperformed in Japan. That concern matters inside Nintendo because film adaptation now sits alongside game quality, character canon, and global brand management, all under the scrutiny of fans who expect the company to get every detail right.

The debate is sharpening at a familiar moment for Nintendo. The first Mario movie in 2023 was also a major hit, but it drew a warmer critical response than the sequel. With the new film, Nintendo is seeing again that commercial success does not automatically translate into critical goodwill, even when audiences keep showing up in force.