During today’s Nintendo Direct event, Nintendo and Illumination Entertainment released the first teaser trailer for the upcoming Super Mario Bros. animation adapatation. The teaser give viewers a first look at the animation style but very little in terms of the movies plot. The biggest reveal out of this teaser trailer is the voice of Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy) voice as Mario which does sound similar to the voice used in The Super Mario Bros. Super show.
During the Direct, Illumination revealed that Animation is set to conclude next week, so it seems that the movie is pretty far along at this point! Illumination’s Super Mario Bros. movie is not the first time the video game icon has appeared on the big screen. A live-action Mario movie released in theaters back in 1993, with Mario and Luigi played by Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo, respectively, and Dennis Hopper as Bowser. While the movie has obtained something of a cult following over the last 29 years, it was a box office bomb. The movie had very little in common with the actual source material, and Nintendo has avoided theatrical adaptations ever since.
It remains to be seen whether Illumination’s film will succeed where the previous Mario movie failed, but Nintendo is being a lot more hands-on this time, and the first teaser certainly looks promising. We’ll likely see a lot more of the film over the next few months, but The Super Mario Bros. Movie will release in theaters on April 7th.
Overall, this teaser has gotten us excited. It looks incredible, but we will need to see a bit more in the next trailer before we really confirm this excitement.