Super Mario: Nintendo's decades of star powerHollywood is having its second bash at sprinkling some movie magic on the Super Mario Bros video game franchise.
by Agence France-Presse
03-04-2023 15:36
in Entertainment
Japanese producer and video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto attends Universal's The Super Mario Bros. Movie special screening at the Regal LA Live in Los Angeles, April 1, 2023. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP)
Hollywood is having its second bash at sprinkling some movie magic on the Super Mario Bros video game franchise, three decades after the last attempt.
--
The pint-sized plumber from Japanese game maker Nintendo has enjoyed 40 years of extraordinary popularity that has transformed the character into a truly global icon.
ALSO READ: Let's-a-go (to Hollywood)! First US Super Mario' theme park to open
THE SAVIOUR Nintendo owes a lot to its moustachioed hero, created by a young game designer called Shigeru Miyamoto initially as the protagonist in the Donkey Kong arcade game 1981.
--
The firm had been struggling to crack the North American market and, according to some accounts, was on the verge of financial ruin.
With Kong, the Japanese studio finally succeeded in the United States and invented the platform video game along the way.
The hero was known as Jumpman until 1983 when he was given the name Mario .
--
Miyamoto then let him loose in his own Super Mario Bros game in 1985, where he was finally renamed Super Mario .
ALSO READ: Film: Netflix, UNESCO seek breakthrough for African cinema
GAMING ICON The main Super Mario games have since shifted more than 400 million units.
And that does not account for wildly popular spinoffs like Mario Kart and Mario Odyssey or Mario Golf and Mario Tennis .
Mario's stratospheric success helped propel Nintendo to the pinnacle of the gaming world.
Game designers have built a Mario universe with characters including his green-clad brother Luigi, turtle-demon nemesis Bowser, and friendly dragon-like sidekick Yoshi.
The franchise has thrived through transitions from 2D to 3D and from consoles to smartphones with Super Mario Run and Mario Kart Tour .
And retro-gamers are still willing to pay big bucks for a slice of its history.
A sealed Nintendo 64 cartridge of Super Mario sold for $1.56 million in 2021, a record for a video game, according to Heritage Auctions in the US.
He is a pop culture icon known to everyone, young and old, Morihiro Shigihara, a writer and former arcade manager, told AFP.
The only other video game character with a claim to be more famous is Pikachu, he said, referencing the hero from the Pokemon franchise.
ALSO READ: Firefly Lane': Season two part two trailer, release date and more
GLOBAL STATESMAN Japan's late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was not known for his comic flair.
So he surprised the world by rocking up to the 2016 Olympics in Rio the official handover ceremony for Tokyo 2020 dressed as Mario.
I wanted to show Japan's soft power to the world with the help of Japanese characters, he told reporters afterwards.
I wasn't sure how the audience would react. But I received so many cheers.
Mario was given perhaps an even stranger tribute by the authorities in the Spanish city of Zaragoza in 2010 when they named a new street Super Mario Bros Avenue.
Though it is just around the corner from streets named after Space Invaders and Tetris.
ALSO READ: Earth Day: Secrets of the Elephants' trailer, release date and more
REAL-WORLD EMPIRE Nowadays, movie adaptations of video games are everywhere. Some, like Resident Evil and Tomb Raider , have become bankable franchises.
But Super Mario was there first with the 1993 movie Super Mario Bros starring Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper.
But it bombed. Critics and audiences hated it.
Nevertheless, the wider Mario universe has expanded undeterred with the genial working-class hero getting toy tie-ins with Lego, watches made by Tag Heuer, and a backpack range from Eastpak.
Mario theme parks are also popping up first in Osaka in 2021, then Los Angeles last year, and a planned third Super Mario World in Florida.
One of the attractions being considered is the ultimate tie-in, where the real world and Mario world finally meet an augmented reality Mario Kart race around Bowser's castle.
By: Yassine Khiri and Mathias Cena Agence France-Presse
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ARTICLES BY AFP.
SOAPIE QUIZ: How well do you know Generations: The Legacy'? WIN R1 000 in cash!
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
28/08/2025
IBC stand 5.F81
Wowza to Reveal Next-Gen Video Streaming Innovations at IBC 2025
Amsterdam, August 28, 2025 Wowza, a leader in video streaming infrastructur...
Super Mario: Nintendo's decades of star powerHollywood is having its second bash at sprinkling some movie magic on the Super Mario Bros video game franchise.
