Get your 2021 Bingo cards out, because Nintendo is bringing us some news that was probably not on anyone’s cards this year.
Yesterday, during their Nintendo Direct presentation, the video game company offered an update on the Super Marios Bros. movie that’s in the works with Illumination. (You know, the studio that brought you Despicable Me and all the minions this world could ask for.)
In the announcement, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto appeared to reveal new details about the movie, including who would be a part of this star-studded voice cast. In the lead is Guardians of the Galaxy actor Chris Pratt, who will voice none other than Mario himself. And Charlie Day has been cast as the character’s brother, Luigi.
On top of that, Anya Taylor-Joy will play Princess Peach, Jack Black will voice the villainous Bowser, and the supporting cast of actors include: Seth Rogen (Donkey Kong), Keegan-Michael Key (Toad), Fred Armisen (Cranky Kong), Kevin Michael Richardson (Kamek) and Sebastian Maniscalco (Spike).
Miyamoto also revealed that the film will be headed to theaters on Dec. 21, 2022, in North America — just in time for the holiday season. You can see the full announcement in the video below, which starts around 28:30.
Super Mario Bros. cast
Of course, on the internet, there was quite the clamor made over the casting decisions. And at the top of that conversation was the choice to cast Chris Pratt as Mario. Voice actor Charles Martinet has long been known as the voice of Mario and other characters in the games, so it will be hard for Pratt to beat that iconic voice. Although, at the very least, they announced that Martinet will “also be involved” in the making of the film.
After the announcement, Danny DeVito began trending on Twitter as well, as many fans both jokingly and seriously argued that DeVito should have been the one cast as Mario because of his resemblance to the video game character. But it should be noted that this movie is an animated feature, not a live-action one. So appearances don’t really matter in this regard.
Overall, Illumination is a very talented studio. They’ve brought us The Secret Life of Pets and the new Grinch movie, both of which are quite good. So we can expect this to be supremely better than the Super Mario Bros. film starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. Though I will always have a soft spot for that film in my heart.
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