After the highly acclaimed (sarcasm intended) 1993 movie, Super Mario Bros, Nintendo is ready to take on, yet again, the cinema industry. All things considered I’m not surprised, not even the fact that Nintendo is selling their shares in the Seattle baseball team, Mariners, to finance the project… I’ll just leave this here:
Details are few and far between, what we do know is that there won’t be any live-action films but rather hand drawn and/or 3D animated movies where Nintendo will play a big part in the production. There was talk of Netflix working hand in hand with Nintendo on a live-action series based on The Legend of Zelda, but that was over a year ago and both parties denied to comment, Nintendo even refuted the idea.
During a recent interview Nintendo president, Tatsumi Kimishima, did mention that popular characters will be featured without mentioning any directly. He said, “We’d like to use IP that is popular with everyone. I can’t say ‘it’ll be Mario’ — just that we’ll do things that people will be familiar with." I just hope he doesn’t consider Miitomo to be something popular and we get to see some Metroid action instead!
Release dates have yet to be confirmed and we are looking at a “later rather than sooner” scenario as the first production should be out within five years. That gives us time to visit the Nintendo World, wherever it will be and maybe even see the release of Nintendo’s NX, if that isn’t pushed back.
Funnily enough this announcement comes at a time when Rovio’s Angry Birds movie hits the screens to apparently an overwhelming debut suggesting a long a profitable run. We can see why other gaming companies would want to surf that cash wave.
Nintendo is clearly laying out some hefty cards and sniffing the air in order to bring diversity to a declining revenue. As a first day fan I’m pleased that Nintendo is broadening it’s horizon and I hope we, the public, profit from this and get to game and watch some quality productions.
