The question block hovering over that Super Mario movie rumour has just produced a big juicy mushroom — the Nintendo mascot is indeed heading to the big screen. Word of a potential film deal emerged late last year, but now a Nintendo tweet has officially confirmed that an animated Mario film is on the way.
The project will come from Illumination Entertainment, the animation studio behind Despicable Me, Sing, and The Secret Life of Pets. Cue worries that a Minions crossover could be on the cards. The other interesting tidbit from Nintendo’s tweet is the fact that Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto will co-produce the film, along with Illumination founder Chris Meledandri.
Other details are scant for now — but Nintendo will surely be hoping to avoid a disaster on the scale of the 1993 live action flop Super Mario Bros., which starred Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi. The Mario game franchise is in exceptionally good form right now, following last year’s Super Mario Odyssey on the Nintendo Switch — if Miyamoto can channel some of that creativity and magic into a big-screen adventure, we could have the first genuinely great video game adaptation on our white-gloved hands. No pressure.
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