Let’s a-go to the movies! Nintendo just revealed that its previously announced Super Mario Bros. animated movie, made in conjunction with Illumination Entertainment, will be headed to theaters December 21, 2022. It also announced the full voice cast which is both star-studded and sure to be very, very controversial.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie voice cast is as follows:
- Chris Pratt as Mario
- Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach
- Charlie Day as Luigi
- Jack Black as Bowser
- Keegan-Michael Key as Toad
- Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong
- Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong
- Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek
- Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike
- And then “surprise cameos” from Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario from the video games.
And no, this is not a joke. It’s real.
Now, if this was any other movie, that voice cast would be hugely exciting. But the Super Mario Bros. games and characters have been a massive part of popular culture for around 40 years. Granted, the characters generally don’t talk a lot but when they do they don’t sound like Star-Lord or Kung Fu Panda. They also don’t sound like Bob Hoskins or John Leguizamo and we know how that turned out. At least these characters, we assume, will look more like the characters from the games than that infamous 1993 live-action film.
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Word of the Illumination Super Mario Bros. film hit back in 2017 and development/production has been moving ahead ever since. Chris Meledandri, founder and CEO of Illumination, which is known for the Despicable Me and Minions movies, is producing along with the Nintendo’s legendary Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario. And while we don’t know much more than that, the voice cast does hint a bit at what we might expect from the movie. All of the characters you know and love, a little history thrown in there with Donkey Kong, a lot of things happening with Bowser and his minions, basically everything you’d want from a Mario movie. That is, if you can get over the cast.
So again, Super Mario Bros.—directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, and written by Matthew Fogel—hits theaters next Christmas and here’s the teaser poster. Tell us your thoughts below.
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