Miyamoto Downplays Mario Movie Rumors

|
,

Among other discussions about Nintendo and its currently surging Wii U console in an interview with the Associated Press, Shigeru Miyamoto downplayed rumors about a Mario movie being created by Spider-Man producer Avi Arad.

The rumors of a movie revolving around Nintendo’s famous plumber sprang up as part of the massive Sony leaks over the past month. In a series of emails posted by Buzzfeed (since removed), Arad had stated that he was the “proud father of mario the animated film.” He also forwarded around several images of him, Miyamoto, and Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata. The latter of which also added “Happy ceo, lets get together, it’s the mother load,” in the email chain.

This of course got the rumor mill spinning as fans began to get pumped up to see Mario in a full-length animated film on the big screen. Even if the rumors are true, the movie would not be coming for a while as it was rumored to still be in the very early stages of development.

HOW TO: Change system date in OS X ...
HOW TO: Change system date in OS X from Terminal

Shigeru Miyamoto downplayed these rumors when asked about them in the interview with the Associated Press. 

Miyamoto: I heard something about that this morning. What’s interesting is that over the past 20 years, people come to us on a fairly regular basis about creating “Mario” movies. There are times that those ideas end right when they bring them to us, and other times we’ll listen to presentations. It’s not very unusual, and it’s something we’ve been doing for a very long time. I don’t particularly have a vision that the next iteration of “Mario” is going to be in film.

Assuming he’s not just blowing smoke to cover up a movie that Nintendo would rather the public not know about yet, his explanation makes sense. It would not be a shock to know that multiple movie studios come to Nintendo wanting to translate gaming’s most recognizable mascot into a movie. Avi Arad could very well have been just another presentation that Nintendo saw, and without the proper context, the leaked emails were blown out of proportion.

In an unrelated question, Miyamoto also noted that he wants Mario to be Nintendo’s own Mickey Mouse.”You saw Mickey Mouse each step of the way. From early on, I wanted Mario to be that character in the digital world,” he stated when asked about the future of Mario games in the Nintendo ecosystem.

Downplayed rumors aside, a Super Mario Bros. movie doesn’t seem completely out of the question. Nintendo has recently loosened their grip on their first-party properties in an effort to spread them to a wider audience. They have allowed Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja to create Hyrule Warriors and Pokemon is getting the Tekken treatment with the upcoming Pokken TournamentThe jump to film seems like an easy and obvious choice.

Mario also has ties to cinema in the form of Disney’s Wreck-It-Ralph. His nemesis Bowser made an appearance in the film as part of a “Bad Guys Anonymous” support group titled Bad-Anon. According to the film’s director Rich Moore, Nintendo was thrilled with Bowser being in the film and were even willing to let them use Mario and Luigi. While the duo were both scheduled to appear in the movie, writers genuinely couldn’t think of a way to include them, so they never made it to the final cut. Instead, Mario was mentioned in a quote by the film’s protagonist Fix it Felix Jr. Mario is expected to appear in Wreck-It-Ralph 2.

[button type=”link” link=”http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/miyamoto-amiibo-zelda-mario-movie-27699825?singlePage=true” size=”btn-sm” variation=”btn-danger” target=”blank”]Source: ABC News[/button]

Last Updated on November 27, 2018.

Previous

CONTEST CLOSED – WINNER ANNOUNCED – The A-Audio Legacy Headphones Giveaway

T-Mobile Settles With FTC Over “Cramming” Charges

Next

Latest Articles

Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap