What’s next for the Nintendo Cinematic Universe?

polygon.com:

Nintendo and Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the second-highest-grossing movie of the year, just behind the box-office phenomenon known as Barbie. The logical question to ask of Nintendo’s partnership with the maker of Minions and Despicable Me is: What’s next?

Nintendo fans have daydreamed of a vast Super Smash Bros. universe, where Mario, Link, Kirby, Captain Falcon, and Samus Aran come together, Endgame-style, to defeat… I don’t know, a giant white glove? Giga Bowser? It’s fun to imagine, but how likely is it? Nintendo is a cautious company, and it’s only begun to wade into the media of cinema with The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

For a dispassionate breakdown of what could actually be next from Nintendo and Illumination, I present the following ranked options for the continuation of the burgeoning Nintendo Cinematic Universe.

Anyone still innocently fantasizing about a rapid, full-court press expansion of the NCU with a Legend of Zelda or Metroid movie needs to face the facts: After a $1.3 billion box-office run for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the logical, profit-maximized choice for Nintendo and Illumination is to make a direct sequel. That very thing was teased at the conclusion of Mario, Luigi, and Peach’s extremely successful movie; seemingly it will focus on a Yoshi running wild in the streets (or sewers) of Brooklyn.

This certainly isn’t the worst possibility! There are plenty of Super Mario characters that deserve the big-screen treatment, like the Koopalings and Bowser Jr. I’d personally love to see Illumination flip the script and make The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2 a rescue movie about the Koopa Kids rescuing Bowser from his Mushroom Kingdom prison — inject some heart into it as the kids reconnect