While the Nintendo faithful count down the days until The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hits theaters on April 1, Lego is here to fulfill an even bigger Super Mario dream, on Mario (Mar10) Day no less. Yes, that’s right: actual Mario minifigures are coming after nearly a decade of fan demand and steadfast reluctance to deliver from the toy maker.
Lego and Nintendo shared the news in a joint Instagram post:
Don’t be fooled by the casual language here. “New form unlocked!” implies that Lego has spontaneously decided to create yet another entry in its best-selling Super Mario range. Collectors have been after Lego to make Mario minifigures since 2020—a quest made even more determined because of how much the company seemingly did not want to deliver them.
Let’s turn back the clock to chart the long road it took to get here. First, there were these blocky, modular additions to the Lego Super Mario collection that were aimed at kids and featured electronic figures not on the minifigure scale.
Then came releases aimed at adults, like this 2,064-piece set to craft a giant yellow question block that included microfigures of Mario, Yoshi, Princess Peach, and others—again, not on the minifigure scale.
Then, the Mario Kart subline arrived, which would seem an ideal setting for minifigures… not the brick-built characters the sets came with, which were more on a scale with the previously available electronic figures.
And just earlier today, Lego revealed a new Luigi Mario Kart set that has 2,234 pieces—and is once again way too large to be anywhere near the neighborhood of minifigure scale, and didn’t even include one as a display counterpart. Imagine if the first-ever Lego Mario minifigure was Luigi!
So why the sudden change of heart? Fan demand probably helped, as did heightened interest in the franchise thanks to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Perhaps the better question is, what took so long? The wait will continue until 2027, but at least there’s an end in sight.
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