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With Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog making bank at the box office, Nintendo is now looking to bring their most popular mascot to the big screen as well. With the failure of the live-action Super Mario Bros, it looks like everyone’s favorite plumber is going to come to the big screen through animation.
As per Games Radar, the Super Mario movie is now ‘scheduled for a theatrical release in 2022.’ Production is apparently moving forward smoothly, and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto is attached as a producer for the film.
The movie is going to come from Illumination—the same studio that brought audiences Minions, and Illumination founder Chris Meledandri had this to say about nabbing the Super Mario rights back in 2018:
“I like that this was not done well the first time… I think that’s more exciting or more worthy than simply making another version of a film that was done incredibly well to begin with.”
Admittedly video games are still hard to adapt into films, but an animated medium seems to be best for a property like Super Mario. With Mario’s world already full of colorful, marketable characters, it would be easy for Illumination to make a movie that kids would completely eat up.
We don’t have an official trailer yet, but the games could give us a good look of just how colorful a Super Mario film could be:
This could be the gripe in me, but I’m hoping they make something with a bit more heart as compared to the cash grab that was Minions. I mean, Disney and Dreamworks have pretty much set a gold standard, and it would be great if Illumination managed to rise to the challenge.
The animated Super Mario movie is set for a release in 2022.
