The Super Mario Bros. Movie Teaser Poster Is Incredibly Revealing

Nintendo's first joint venture with Illumination, the upcoming animated film based on Nintendo's famous video game property "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," first went viral in 2021 for a casting announcement that left, well, everyone baffled. While the cast features exciting decisions such as Jack Black as the big bad bachelor Bowser and Seth Rogan as the questionably attired and even more questionably named Donkey Kong, no one was prepared to see Chris Pratt's name attached to the role of the famous plumber himself, Mario Jumpman Mario (yes, that's literally his name).

Precious little new information has surfaced since that bizarre reveal last September — that is, until now. On October 4, 2022, the Nintendo of America Twitter account shared that the film's first trailer would drop before the end of the week. Along with the trailer tease, the tweet included the first official poster for "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," and it's a veritable "Where's Waldo?" of densely packed fan trivia. Frankly, we're just stoked that it isn't a Floating Heads situation. Let's take a look. 

The poster depicts Mario taking in the Mushroom Kingdom. Surrounding him are the many shades of Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) as they bustle through the lively streets of their homeland. Prominent among the visible Toads is someone who seems to be Captain Toad, the titular traveler of the "Captain Toad" spinoff games, complete with his cluttered backpack. It looks like Captain Toad is showing off the place to Mario, with his arms outspread to showcase the kingdom's grandeur. 

The street is lined with mushroom-capped shops, one of which features an 8-bit sign for "ANTIQUES" which references Mario's trusty hammer from the old arcade game where Donkey Kong threw barrels at him (the barrel's there, too, dangling from the wooden post). Beneath the "ANTIQUES" awning is a shelf of the bouncy music note blocks and the world-altering P switches. And, yes, that is a Yoshi egg hiding in the shadow. 

As the eye pans skyward, Mushroom Castle, the ancestral home of Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) is seen, towering above the common folk on a mountain of warp pipes. It's the spitting image of Peach's domain in "Super Mario 64." Even higher, it looks as though a series of floating isles are hovering just out of reach. The isles might be a reference to either "Super Mario Odyssey" or the "Super Mario Galaxy" games, both of which heavily feature tiny worlds for Mario to explore.  

And somehow there's still more — the Cheep Cheep in the bag, the Fruit Stand, and the waddling Biddy Buds, just to name a few. The only thing this poster leaves us wondering is why Mario's face is hidden. Did he shave his mustache? Or might he even look like Chris Pratt?