Nintendo has been entertaining the idea of porting its beloved cast of characters over to the film industry territory for a while, but lately what was only a thought at first has turned into action after the company recently brought in Despicable Me producer Chris Meledandri to its board of directors to lend out a hand in possibly launching a new era of Nintendo licensed movies.
This strategy will start taking form in 2022 when the Super Mario Bros. movie finally releases after over five years of work put in by Meledandri alongside Shigeru Miyamoto, to ensure that the horrors from the 90s stay buried in the past. However, the biggest takeaway from this news is that Nintendo decided to bring a foreign name from Hollywood to work as a key advisor to boost its moviemaking aspirations.
Japanese companies, but Nintendo more prominently so than many others, are often accused of being governed by a “Not Invented Here” bias, a tendency seen in many fields where the subject remains reluctant to embrace products, technologies, methods, and ideas not originated from the company itself. It’s for this reason that this appointment cannot be taken lightly as it’s a first for the company to admit it could use a foreign independent board member to directly oversee how it carries its business.
In order to convert the magic from The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, Donkey Kong, and Mario to big-screen format Nintendo needs help, and Miyamoto himself is the first to recognize that by pointing out how big of a mistake it is to think that the company’s knack for making great video games would translate directly to movies. Perhaps this more obvious now than ever considering video game movies are starting to get good.
Pokémon anime films have for long been successful enough flying solo to be qualified as their own thing, but Nintendo certainly must have taken notice of the huge untapped potential it has on its hands thanks to Detective Pikachu and Sonic The Hedgehog’s profitable run in theaters worldwide. After all, if Nintendo’s old bitter rival Sega can find success licensing Sonic then Nintendo should be able to achieve wonders with its video game army.
Unlike Marvel Studios that had to launch its MCU without its most beloved superheroes, Nintendo has all the cards at its disposal, including gaming’s Greatest of All Time, Mario. Unlike a lot of gaming properties out there, the world’s most famous plumber doesn’t have to deal with an overly complicated plot universe, because a good Super Mario movie should be above all a well-made and very fun, just like a Mario game.
The problem lies with the rest of the Nintendo gang, Samus, Link, Zelda, and the Kong family. Both Metroid and The Legend of Zelda stand out as more complex projects with real stories, wider lore, and in Zelda’s case a timeline that would make the Avengers and Kevin Feige jealous for good reason, all to make for those particular franchises a real challenger to adapt to cinema while appeasing fans and also managing to turn out a competent movie that can carry its own weight.
All this Mario bears an unmeasurable burden to help launch the prospective Nintendo Cinematic Universe since failure from the get-go would cast a much dimmer light on the rest of the pipeline; yet, deserved success could be the catalyzer that instills in fans the notion that Nintendo can in fact make movies, as long as its rolling with the right team to help its video game creators navigate the waters of filmmaking.
Although the thought of an eventual Super Smash Bros. Ultimate type crossover might seem tantalizing at first, the harsh reality could be that different Nintendo franchises simply each warrant their own unique focus to be smoothly adapted to film. Let's not forget that the fighting game genre has arguably churned out more bad video game adaptations than any other genre, with only the old and new Mortal Kombat somewhat succeeding at channeling proper video game vibes, even if falling quite short of being actually good movies.
With that in mind, a future filled with Nintendo movies and shows would be better suited to a similar approach to what Netflix is doing right now with Resident Evil, Splinter Cell, Assasin's Creed, and Cuphead, especially the former, for which it's crafting unique stories in more than one form of presentation. This is something worth noting when taking into consideration Nintendo had already toyed with the idea of making a live-action Zelda alongside Netflix, a project that could easily be fitted as an animated Nintendo effort.
There's no reason why Nintendo couldn't dig out something like F-Zero and make it a Castlevania-like anime; cast the perfect Link and Zelda for its live-action adaptation; and, just leave the Illumination studio to work its Minion wizardry with Super Mario Bros. (even without Charles Martinet's voice), as a Nintendo movie universe is brimming with too much potential to be shackled by only one or two artforms.
As a new dawn appears to rise for video game franchises when it comes to other forms of entertainment, it would appear to be a thing of destiny to have one of the biggest game companies take the baton to show what many others have been missing for so long. If not then Sony is more than ready to do it with Tom Holland, Nathan Drake, and a plethora of other gaming stories it wants to tell.