Super Mario Bros. is a platforming game made by Nintendo and published in 1983. The game was playable on Nintendo’s Famicom, which is called the Nintendo Entertainment System in America. Eventually, the name Super Mario would be known around the entire world. Fast-forward almost 40 years where the titular plumber is jumping to the big screen again.

   This isn’t the first time Mario’s had a movie, another movie was created back in 1993. But the movie wasn’t praised very highly by the vast majority of Mario fans. This was because the movie was not a faithful adaptation of the game. The directors poorly-managed the story, changing the scripts when scenes were being recorded, making the already tired actors and extras complete more work than they bargained for. The directors also treated the original story of Super Mario like it was a bad adaptation of the film’s story, despite itself being a bad adaptation of the original. The budget of the movie was between $42-$48 million, buth the movie only made about $38.9 million.

   In Sept. 2021, in the latest Nintendo Direct (their game showcase), one of the designers and creators of Mario, Shigeru Miyamoto announced the Super Mario movie. Mario is to be voiced by Chris Pratt and Bowser voiced by Jack Black, along with other actors voicing other Mario characters, Keegan Michael-Key is expected to be voicing Toad and Seth Rogan will be voicing Donkey Kong. This was done with the expectation that these casting decisions will attract an older audience who know more about the actors than the video game.   

    About a year later, a definitive trailer was announced in the recent Nintendo Direct. They also said the studio, Illumination will be animating the movie and that the trailer was to come out Oct. 6. After a month of waiting, Mario fans were able to view the trailer after it was released on the Nintendo YouTube channel. During the trailer, Bowser and his army attack an Ice Kingdom of penguins, obtain a magical star and Mario ends up in the Mushroom Kingdom.

   In my opinion, Nintendo wants a movie of their main mascot because of the success of video game movie adaptations, like Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog and GameFreak’s Detective Pikachu. From a business perspective, having a successful movie franchise with big actors just screams “Big Money.” It’s best to wait until April to understand how audiences feel about the movie.

UPDATE:

   Another trailer was released on November 11th, 2022 which revealed more about the movie, like the actor of Princess Peach who is Anya Taylor-Joy. In the trailer, they reveal Donkey Kong and Princess Peach’s characters and designs. Princess Peach is a much more active and stronger character than how she was portrayed in the games, wanting to stop Bowser herself. Donkey Kong is told to be a comical character but never shown as one. It will probably be revealed once the movie is released.