When it was announced that Illumination Entertainment and Japanese games giant Nintendo were developing a whole new CGI world ofSuper Mariomovies, fans of the franchise were instantly on board with the project, which will be kicking off in December this year with an as yet untitledMariomoviestarring Chris Pratt as the voice of the titular plumber. For a Marvel stalwart like Pratt, keeping secrets should be no issue, and that is just as well, with co-starCharlie Dayrevealing that secrecy around the project is at least equal to that of the MCU.
The arrival of the newSonic The Hedgehogmovie in 2020 caught many people off guard by actually being a good movie. While a lot of game-to-screen adaptations have been duds, many recent additions have actually managed to avoid the pitfalls suffered over the years by the likes of 1993’s live-actionSuper Mario Bros. movie, which despite now having a cult following was a disaster at the time. The announcement about not only one but a new series of animated Mario movies, featuring an all-star cast of Pratt, Day, Anya Taylor-Joy and Jack Black among others, has come with a certain expectation of more than other Mario outings have offered.
While promoting his new movieI Want You Back, which arrived on Prime Video this week, Day revealed toScreen Rantthat he has already recorded a lot of his voiceover work for his role of Luigi, but he cannot talk about it. He revealed that as well as having to record numerous versions of the same line for directors to then later decide which they want to use, he has not seen most of the script. He said:
“Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of recording. Although, I was talking about this last night on Kimmel, I know so little about the movie because it’s like the Marvel Universe. They released to me very specific lines, and they call me in and say, ‘Say Mario 7000 different ways and then we’ll pick which one we want.’ So I know almost nothing. […] I’m not in the inner circle of the Nintendo World.”
Related:Super Mario Bros. Movie Producer Defends Chris Pratt Casting
The Secrecy Around The Mario Movie Hasn’t Prevented The Film Being The Subject Of Online Debate
While fans have not yet had a change to pick apart the story of theMariomovie, the film became the subject of many online debates early on thanks to the casting of Chris Pratt as the voice of its lead character. With so many issues being raised about who can and cannot play certain characters in movies and TV shows, as well as which accents can and cannot be imitated, the casting of Pratt as Mario and his lack of Italian heritage caused some to take offense at the idea he could be putting on an exaggerated Italian accent. However, filmmakers hit back at this, saying that Pratt would not be doing the character’s famous accent, which then led to another debate about the character being changed too much from his original game-based form.
It is usually best to reserve judgement on casting quality until some footage is available of the actor or actress in action, as over the time many stars have been called out for roles that turned out to be some of the best in their careers. While, it is doubtful that the role of Mario will be the pinnacle of Pratt’s body of work, there is every chance his take on the adventuring plumber could well become as iconic for this generation as the game did for kids of the 90s.
