Movie trailer at a New York Comic-Con panel back in the fall with a synchronous integration on Nintendo Direct (YouTube digital press conference for the brand), along with a global digital launch. Universal blasted off the Super Mario Bros. That wound up being a bad hindsight move that prevented Nintendo from making another Super Mario Bros movie again, until they teamed with Illumination decades later. At the time, the movie was a licensing experiment for Nintendo, and the video game corp gave creative control to the filmmakers. Miyamoto’s lack of involvement further exacerbated the pic’s failure. Brooklyn plumbers Mario and Luigi (Bob Hoskins and John Leguziamo) ultimately rescue her from Koopa. Toad isn’t a talking mushroom but a punk rocker. Female protag Daisy learns she’s a descendant of dinosaurs, and she’s kidnapped by King Koopa (Dennis Hopper). ![]() The failure of the 1993 live-action production, which was mired in production problems (read the Variety piece here), was intended to be a prequel, and concocted a story unrelated to the video game with the setting being in sister world Dinohatten. ![]() However, that thankfully blew over for Universal/Illumination/Nintendo, and clearly did not impact the animated pic’s ticket sales. At first there seemed to be some negative chatter online coming away from the fall trailer drop that Pratt’s impersonation wasn’t Italian enough. Then there was Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt in the title role of Mario. Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowzer, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, etc. Like any great animated film (think Shrek), Illumination stunted Super Mario Bros by matching the biggest names in film right now to their respective character likenesses, i.e. The film was made by our partners at Cinergi with the Hollywood banner, and Buena Vista Pictures Distribution serving as the distributing entity in this case.” Katzenberg further added, “As you may know, Hollywood Pictures did not fully finance or oversee the creative control of Super Mario Brothers. The filmmakers were quite successful in creating a fanciful world, but ultimately the script did not deliver in the way it could or should have.” Although the film was long on ambition and imagination, it did not attempt to merely bring the video game to the screen. Katzenberg responded to Roman a month later on Jwriting, “We have a few theories of our own around the studio and feel that, clearly, for whatever reasons, the film fell short of satisfying the many fans of the video game. “The answer lies in the advertising slogan chosen to sell the movie, ‘This ain’t no game.’ The film Super Mario Brothers was precisely that ‘It wasn’t the game’,” wrote Roman. Midwest exhibitor Rick Roman fired off a letter (correspondence which we’ve read) to then-Disney Studios Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, detailing his theories as to why the Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel movie buckled. was still popular enough to spur a potential stampede at the box office. The Super Mario Bros gaming universe since its mid 1980s inception has minted a reported $22 billion worldwide and sold close to 400M games. ![]() Super Mario Bros easily notched an A CinemaScore and 88% PostTrak exits, with a 75% Definite Recommend, as opposed to the 1993 film’s B+ and 29% Rotten Tomatoes audience score. The best movie marketing machines in town –and Universal has one of ’em– don’t work without a film that connects with audiences (and studios can decipher that appeal well in advance). He’s an asset the first 1993 live-action feature adaptation did not have, with the Disney/Hollywood Pictures-distributed title ultimately finaling a disastrous $40M WW off a near $50M production cost. 'Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse' Snares $209M Global Bow - International Box Office
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