MOVIE NEWS – Well, well, well: is Nintendo taking a serious return to the big screen after Mario’s major flop in 1993?

Nintendo announced on Twitter that they have teamed up with Illumination Entertainment (the animation studios owned by Universal Studios – they created the Despicable Me trilogy, as well as Minions) to create a new Mario animated film. Two producers are known – one of them will be Shigeru Miyamoto (the creator of the Mario series), and the other one will be Chris Meledandri (the creator of Minions). (Nintendo has another movie project – Detective Pikachu is being made at Toho Company, distributed by Universal. That one isn’t a live-action project either, but it’s still more than nothing.)

Although the announcement happened in January, bigger details started to show up the other day; Meledandri told Variety the following: „I like that this [the first Mario movie] was not done well the first time. I think that’s more exciting or more worthy than simply making another version of a film that was done incredibly well, to begin with. We are keeping Shigeru Miyamoto front and centre in the creation of this film. I’ve rarely seen that happen with any adaptation where the original creative voice is being embraced like we’re embracing Miyamoto. There’s a history in Hollywood of people believing that they know better than the people responsible for a property. I’ve made that mistake before.”

Melendandri says the Mario film is in priority development, and it might be done by 2022.

Source: DualShockers, DualShockers

Nintendo and Illumination are partnering on a movie starring Mario, co-produced by Shigeru Miyamoto and Chris Meledandri! pic.twitter.com/wVRPLIzcGJ

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 1, 2018