The recent announcement that the Super Mario Bros. movie is set to be delayed could prove to be a major blessing in disguise and help prevent a repeat of the disastrous Sonic the Hedgehog design. Illumination and Nintendo revealed back in April that the movie adaption of the Mario video game franchise was to be delayed four months from December 2022 to April 2023. The first Sonic The Hedgehog movie faced massive backlash after showcasing an awful Sonic design in the first trailer, which forced the studio into delaying the movie and consequently producing a far better version. This four-month delay of the Mario movie may just help them avoid any similar criticism.
Nintendo announced that a Super Mario Bros. movie was in the works back in 2018 and that it would be computer-animated. It was later revealed that Chris Pratt would be the voice of Mario and Charlie Day would voice Luigi. Nintendo also managed to convince some other huge names to star in the movie, with Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black and Seth Rogen voicing Princess Peach, Bowser and Donkey Kong respectively. Video game movies have historically tended to be underwhelming, but Detective Pikachu and the two Sonic The Hedgehogs have shown that it is possible to translate quality games into enjoyable movies.
The initial design of Sonic was truly dreadful, but any concern over whether the Mario movie will make the same error seems to be misplaced. The delay should allow producers to get this spot on and when the trailer is eventually revealed to the public, it should be a Mario that looks genuinely good. Having the extra time to think and work on an ideal version might help Mario learn from the mistakes of Sonic The Hedgehog.
Another reason that the delay could be positive is that audiences are already majorly split on this movie. Besides the Despicable Me franchise, Illumination doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to animated movies, with The Lorax and Hop key examples of this. A further consideration is that the character of Mario is really simple and does pretty much no dialogue. He has no back story, no character development and is simplistic and restricted. For a video game, that is perfect. But how well that will translate onto the big screen remains to be seen. There are so many difficult questions that Nintendo will have to answer, but the delay of this movie has at least given them the chance to work on the movie a little bit more, and even avoid the mistakes the original Mario movie made.
Some Mario fans may be disappointed that the movie has been delayed by four months, but it might just have been the best thing to happen. With many already doubtful that Nintendo and Illumination will be able to produce a good movie, this extra time will give them a better opportunity to perfect everything. This includes the design of Mario himself and avoiding similarities to the original Sonic design. Hopefully, they are able to do him justice and create a Super Mario Bros. movie that makes the fanbase happy.
