If you haven't seen it, take our word for it: the Super Mario Bros. movie isn't very good. Its stars hated it. So did critics, the film's producers (who demanded last-minute script changes after realizing that the film wasn't going to look anything like the video games), and judging from the box office receipts, audiences too.

Despite the on-set chaos (allegedly, co-star John Leguizamo, who played Luigi, only survived the shoot by drinking heavily), the filmmakers optimistically ended the film on a cliffhanger, with Princess Daisy returning from Dinohattan, flamethrower in hand, to enlist the Mario Bros.' help. Given the film's poor reception, a sequel was never filmed. However, in 2010, two fans—believe it or not, the movie has a few—interviewed co-writer Parker Bennett for the Super Mario Bros. The Movie Archive and joked about a teaming up for a sequel. Afterwards, discussions became more serious, and Bennett helped the duo come up with the plot for Super Mario Bros. 2.

It's not a real movie, of course. Writers Steven Applebaum and Ryan Hoss don't have the rights on the budget to film a fully-fledged sequel. But, with help from artist Eryk Donovan and letterer Jaymes Reed, they were able to transform their pitch into a webcomic that picks up right where Super Mario Bros. left off. It's totally unauthorized, and yet, with Bennett's input, also basically canon.

Sadly, the comic may never be finished. While Applebaum and Hoss' comic gets about halfway through the story, production seems to have stopped sometime in 2015. Around the same time, Applebaum and Hoss launched a (now-deleted) Indiegogo campaign dedicated to raising money for an officially licensed comic book adaptation, but that stalled out at $60, leaving most of the $1050 goal out of reach.