It’s been a long time since any Nintendo characters graced the filmic screen in any significant capacity, 22 years in fact. Now Nintendo mastermind Shigeru Miyamoto has stated the way is open once again.
Nintendo made it’s first, and so far last, foray into cinema with 1993’s ‘Super Mario Bros.’ starring Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi.
It will suffice to say the film was not well received, only gaining a rating of 16% on rotten tomatoes. It makes sense then that they decided to beat a retreat from cinema and concentrate on what they were good at; making terrific video games.
Obviously they’ve decided the lure of big bucks is enough to venture forth once more. With superhero movies, full of oddball characters, dominating the cinematic landscape it’s the perfect time to inject Nintendo characters into film. They’ve had cameos by Bowser in ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ (critically acclaimed) and Donkey Kong in ‘Pixels’ (critically panned) but no major film since the 1993 disaster.
What fan wouldn’t want to see Zelda, Yoshi, or Pikachu in a movie. It’s fair to say expectations for a masterpiece are zero but success similar to what ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ achieved is reachable if the films were in the right hands.
First things first though, we don’t even know yet what films would be made. However, Miyamoto and general manager of Nintendo SPD Shinya Takahashi are now in talks with Hollywood and are overseeing the use of characters in film-based entertainment products. Miyamoto has understandably been hesitant in the past saying to Fortune he’d been approached by a number of people.
“Because games and movies seem like similar mediums, people’s natural expectation is we want to take our games and turn them into movies. … I’ve always felt video games, being an interactive medium, and movies, being a passive medium, mean the two are quite different.”
Still, he may be coming around, acknowledging the company is open to the idea of producing movies again.
“As we look more broadly at what is Nintendo’s role as an entertainment company, we’re starting to think more and more about how movies can fit in with that—and we’ll potentially be looking at things like movies in the future.”
A Legend of Zelda Netflix TV series has been rumoured but denied by the company.
It can only be imagined how great a Mario Kart movie would be. Fans of the franchise would go crazy. It’s such a social, multi-player platform that the company would be guaranteed success, regardless of the quality. The same applies to Super Smash Bros. However they would only get away with a poor offering once, so it’s positive to see that Nintendo is being circumspect with entering into talks with film companies.
While it may be too soon to get excited, it’s never too soon to get excited when it comes to Nintendo.
What’s your favourite Nintendo game and would you like to see it as a film?
