As part of Nintendo’s financial briefing, the company’s president Shuntaro Furukawa talked a little but the upcoming Super Mario movie, being shepherded by Nintendo and made by Minions studio Illumination. While the two groups only announced the movie last year, it will still be a little while before we’ll see anything from Nintendo’s first major motion picture in decades.
Furukawa said that the movie is “moving along for an anticipated theatrical release around 2022.” He also reconfirmed that Mario creator and Nintendo creative fellow Shigeru Miyamoto is producing the film to make sure it is under the watchful eye of Nintendo.
This is actually the second Mario movie to ever exist. In 1993, when Mario had more social cache than even Mickey Mouse, Nintendo gleefully licensed the IP out for a Super Mario Bros. movie starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Anthony Hopkins. It was a historic critical and commercial failure, convincing Nintendo to back off from movies for the next 20 years. Before the late president Satoru Iwata passed away, he made cross-media deals to begin the process of making a Mario movie once again.
As part of the movie status update, Furukawa did affirm that Nintendo’s core focus is going to stay on games, but that Nintendo as a whole wants to expose their intelligent properties to more people as part of a fundamental goal for the company. That probably means Mario will not be the last movie they plan to put into motion.
What Nintendo IP would you most like to see a movie for and who would you want to see make it? Let us know below in the comments.
Source: Game Informer Super Mario Movie Aiming For 2022