Pressure is on to get new Super Mario Bros movie right

LOS ANGELES – The first film based on Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros video games, the live-action fantasy Super Mario Bros (1993) starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo, was a resounding flop.

A second attempt at adapting these iconic characters for the big screen, The Super Mario Bros Movie, lands in Singapore cinemas on Thursday.

An animated adventure, it sees moustachioed Brooklyn plumbers Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) being sucked down a pipe into a universe of fantastical kingdoms, complete with floating bricks and magical power-ups just like in the games.

When Luigi falls into the hands of a villain named Bowser (Jack Black), Mario must embark on a quest to save him with the help of new allies Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen).

Voicing Mario came with “a good amount of healthy pressure”, Pratt tells The Straits Times and other media at a Zoom press event.

“I’ve played the game for the better part of 30 years and so I knew the fans would be really eager to see this movie, but would also be upset if it got ruined,” says the 43-year-old American actor. He is the star of the Jurassic World science-fiction trilogy (2015 to 2022) and the Guardians Of The Galaxy superhero films (2014 to 2017).

But Pratt’s experience lending his voice to the hit Lego Movie franchise (2014 to 2019) showed how an animated adaptation of this sort could succeed.

“It certainly raised the bar. And they did an extraordinary job of showing how you can take an intellectual property with a lot of reach, move it into the movie world, and craft a narrative that’s cutting-edge, fun, exciting and contemporary,” he says.

He also points out that compared with the blank slate of Lego’s building blocks, it was a little easier to conjure up a story based on the Super Mario games, which have established characters and distinct worlds.

“It’s a little bit of an easier transition to go from the Mario Bros video game to a movie than it is to make The Lego Movie, but they’re not dissimilar. The Mario and Luigi characters, similar to Lego, are just things people play with. There wasn’t really a story there,” says Pratt.

Day, who also voiced a character in the Lego films, agrees.

“All around the world, kids are taking their Mario or Luigi toy and making up a story that they’re being chased by whatever it is, and even with Legos, they do that as well,” says the 47-year-old American actor. He starred in the Horrible Bosses comedy films (2011 and 2014) and the sitcom It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (2005 to present).

“So it seems a natural evolution to take characters that people are already telling stories with, and then expand on those stories for the audience.”

But it was important for Taylor-Joy that Princess Peach be much more than the two-dimensional character she is in the games.

“When I was first approached to play her, I was so thrilled and honoured. But I didn’t want to do it unless she was more empowered and more three-dimensional,” says the 26-year-old British-American actress, who starred in chess drama The Queen’s Gambit (2020) and horror film The Menu (2022).

“While Princess Peach is a very iconic character, she’s best known for being kidnapped and saying, ‘Save me, Mario’ (in the games), and I just felt like that was a missed opportunity.”

Luckily, the film’s creators, including directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and writer Matthew Fogel, “were super on board” with making the character fiercely capable in her own right, Taylor-Joy adds.

“So it felt like we could still nod to the character people have grown up with and love, while still making her not only a modern-day princess but also a ruler,” she says.

“And I left this film feeling so inspired and really quite emotional that there is a generation that will now grow up with Princess Peach being this way.”

The Super Mario Bros Movie opens on Thursday.