When it was revealed that Illumination was releasing another Nintendo movie in 2028, there were a few major possibilities flung around. Some thought it was a Donkey Kong movie, since both the Mario Movie cast and Illumination themselves have discussed the idea in the past. Some thought it was a Luigi’s Mansion movie, since Charlie Day mentioned the idea in a few interviews.

And some thought it was something a bit bigger than either of those. Like say, a Star Fox movie in its own universe, or a third Mario movie being put together in record time.

But it seems another possibility has come to the forefront. Another possibility that fans didn’t exactly expect.

That being, a spinoff starring Princess Peach. Yep, according to Illumination Studios Paris character rig designer Eric Skjold, an ‘Untitled P Peach Movie’ is in development, having been in production for about 2 months now. Here’s a picture of his LinkedIn history with the item in question:

Eric’s work experience shows an Untitled PP Movie and an Untitled PO Movie

Yeah, it would line up pretty well with the Mario movie stuff. Eric’s already been a major contributor to both the Super Mario Bros Movie and the Super Mario Galaxy one, and other items in his work history do seem to correlate to Illumination’s output over those last few years.

Now admittedly, there is another Illumination character with the initials PP. Poppy Prescott from the fourth Despicable Me movie. So, in theory, this could be a movie starring said character.

However, the chances of that are pretty slim. Why?

Because right under the entry for an Untitled PP Movie, there’s another entry for an Untitled PO Movie that’s been in production for the last year or so. Given that entry fits Poppy’s name far better than Peach’s, we’d hazard a guess that the earlier entry is probably the Despicable Me spinoff.

So, there’s a decent chance that Peach is getting her own movie. However, that still raises a few notable questions here.

Most notably, why?

Why Princess Peach of all characters?

Yeah, she’s a fun character in the movies. And yes, she did indeed get a few games in the past in the form of Super Princess Peach and Princess Peach: Showtime.
So, there’s definitely precedent for her being a protagonist.

But it seems a bit random on the movie front. Both Luigi and Donkey Kong have massive franchises to their names, with their most successful games selling 10 or even 20 million copies worldwide. There’s clear demand for a Luigi’s Mansion or Donkey Kong Country movie here, and it basically sells itself to die-hard fans of the Mario franchise.

A Princess Peach movie on the other hand, that seems a bit riskier. None of her games have exactly been critical or commercial hits on the same level as Luigi or Donkey Kong’s, and there hasn’t really been some huge demand for the character from film fans either. She’s popular for sure, but she’s not “oh my god we need a movie about her right this minute!” level popular.

Secondly, we have to wonder what the film would be about here.

Because while ideally Princess Peach: Showtime would be the obvious subject matter (Peach and Stella go to save the Sparkle Theatre from Grape and the Sour Bunch), we’re not entirely sure that’s got the level of recognition needed to support a multi-million dollar animated movie. It sold about 1.3 million copies, putting it lower than many of the other spinoffs in the Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi and Wario series.

This game didn’t exactly flop, but it also didn’t sell tens of millions of copies either…

So, we’re not sure if that’s going to be enough name recognition to carry the movie by itself. Presumably, the film will be a bit more generic than a direct Princess Peach: Showtime adaptation, and be a loose amalgamation of various other games and ideas related to the character.

Either way, that’s some evidence that a Princess Peach movie could be in production at Illumination, and might in fact be the 2028 Nintendo movie mentioned in the recent release schedule.

But what do you think? Is this really the next Nintendo film from Illumination? Why would they pick Peach over Luigi, DK or Bowser as the main character if so?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below, or on our Discord server today!