The Super Mario Bros. Movieis a massive success for bothNintendoand Illumination. Not only is it widely adored by fans of the games, but it’s alsoon track to make at least $1.2 billionat the global box office, making it one of the most successful animated movies of all time. It’scompletely smashed the previous record for a video game adaptation, leaving Warcraft and Pokemon: Detective Pikachu in its dust, and was even reported as the number one film in at least 26 different countries.
Now, you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that Nintendo is probably going to be pretty confident in its movie making abilities after this success. It’s expected that Nintendo will continue to adapt its properties into movies, but Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto has now pretty much confirmed that in a recent interview. Speaking with Japanese outletNikkei(translated byMy Nintendo News), Miyamoto says that there’s “no doubt” that we’ll be getting more movies from Nintendo in the future.
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Like I said, that’s not too surprising considering how much money The Super Mario Bros. Movie has managed to rake in. Popular characters such as Rosalina, Wario, and Waluigi are still to make their big screen debuts, so there’s plenty of potential ideas for a sequel or two, and Luigi voice actor Charlie Day has already opened the door to potential spin-offs bycalling for a Luigi’s Mansion movie.
However, it’s interesting to note that Miyamoto doesn’t specifically mention that Nintendo is only going to stick with Mario and the gang. Nintendo fans have been putting together a potential Nintendo Cinematic Universe since the Mario movie first launched, and it appears as though Miyamoto is leaving the door open for adaptations of other Nintendo properties. The Legend of Zelda is a franchise that is just as big as Mario, while Donkey Kong, StarFox, and Metroid also have committed fanbases that are always eager to see their favorite Nintendo mascot get more love.
Let’s be honest, there’s probably a huge line of studios looking to get their hands on a Nintendo IP now that Mario has proven incredibly successful, and the publisher likely has their pick of the bunch if it doesn’t want to stick with Illumination for a potential Zelda adaptation. The future is incredibly bright for Nintendo’s movie making venture, but we’ll have to wait and see whether it will be brave enough to adapt some of its other franchises and not just immediately go for The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2.
