One wonders if the movie will stand all by itself, however, or if Nintendo has broader plans to support it. Super Mario merchandise themed toward the movie would make sense, but Nintendo might make the even more dramatic move of developing a new Mario game that’s based on the events of the movie. The game’s plot is up in the air, and there’s no telling how closely it’ll stick to Mario conventions, but Nintendo is so enthusiastic about the film that a game adaptation seems like the logical next step, even if that game adaptation is a totally new kind of Mario game.
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The Potential for a Mario Movie Game
For most video game adaptations, screenwriters can take the lore and plot of a franchise and rework it to fit a movie or TV format. In that way, Mario is an odd franchise to adapt because there really isn’t a broad story. Many games repeat narratives about Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach, leaving Mario and Luigi to save her, but there isn’t much cohesion between games, save for specific spinoffs like the Mario and Luigi RPG subseries. The Mario movie will likely focus on the core Super Mario games in spite of their modest plots, which means Illumination will have to weave a complete story out of a franchise that’s traditionally light on storytelling.
There isn’t any Super Mario game with a particularly more compelling plot than another, so the movie likely won’t focus on a specific Super Mario title. As a result, Nintendo has an opening to make a game adaptation of the Mario movie. With so few public details about the Mario movie so far, it’s hard to say what kind of game that would turn out to be. A Mario movie game could be a 3D platformer with heavy voice acting and a few mechanical twists, or it could be totally different, taking something like an action-adventure angle, should that match the movie’s style. Regardless, Nintendo certainly has the power to make a creative adaptation of the film.
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The Mario Movie’s Future
With complete control over its IP, perhaps the only thing standing in the way of a Mario movie game is public sentiment. Some Nintendo fans were on the fence about Illumination working on the film, and Nintendo saw more outspoken criticism when fans learned that the Mario movie’s voice actors were largely Hollywood stars rather than the actual Super Mario voice cast. That response may have already scared Nintendo off of a theoretical game adaptation.
On the other hand, Nintendo has voiced such enthusiastic support for the Mario movie in these early days that it may power through the development of a Mario movie game, regardless of the film’s reception. A video game companion to the Mario movie certainly seems like a good way to advertise two products at the same time and capitalize on Mario’s return to the big screen. Since Nintendo is excited about the movie, a game adaptation seems more like an inevitability than a likelihood. It’s just a matter of waiting on Nintendo to announce something.
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