Sonic the Hedgehog made it to the screen after some embattled uncanny valley design issues; Uncharted has topped box office charts; and a new Halo TV series is the next big prestige grab for gamer attention spans.
Who else could reign supreme over 2022’s video game adaptations but Nintendo’s portly Italian-American plumber? A feature-length animated Mario movie is woo-hoo-ing into Australian cinemas on December 26. Mario and his forsaken brother Luigi have busted open plenty of boxes before: maybe this Boxing Day they can bust up the box office, too.
In a cheery video from Nintendo game director Shigeru Miyamoto, the man who is basically Mario’s dad/god admits that “it’ll be a little while longer until we can share a glimpse of Mario in action on the big screen”. To be frank, we’re still reeling over the English voice cast, proudly announced below with the following little encouragements.
For some reason, Chris Pratt will voice Mario himself (“he’s so cool,” Miyamoto gushes). Anya Taylor-Joy will play a “very spirited Princess Peach”, and Charlie Day will bring “timid sibling” Luigi to life.
Miyamoto is “expecting a monster performance by Jack-san”, Jack-san being Jack Black as bad guy Bowser. And Keegan Michael Key as Toad should provide “great comedic moments”, apparently.
That’s all well and good, Miyamoto-san, and we’re sure the Illumination team will maintain the classic look of the video game character while bringing him into a cinematic dimension too.
But what about Waluigi and Wario? What about, as the below video suggests, the opportunity to cast legend Steve Buscemi as a cheep chomp???
It’s obviously all a big foolish meme, but now we’re sad that we won’t get Danny Devito as Wario—or even better, Mario alongside Day’s Luigi. It’s Always Sunny In Mushroom Kingdom could’ve been spectacular.
