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Dear Rocky and Annabelle, et al:
It was great to meet you last week -- there was certainly
no shortage of good ideas flying around, and we got thesense
it would be fun working with you. We hope you feel thesame.
However, we didn't get to nail down a lot of specifics as
to what we wanted to do with "SUPER MARIO BROS.," how all
those ideas will fit together into a movie, so we've put
together a few pages to give you a better idea of what wehave in mind.
We think we can make this movie a lot more compelling.
Right now there isn't enough at stake for Mario, and thestory is never really funny or scary or outlandish enough.
We think we know how to address these problems, focusing
more on the brothers' relationship, and expanding Koopa's
plot so that it endangers are own world.
We hope this will give you a better sense that we're all on
the same wavelength, and convince you we can do the job.

All the Best,

Parker and Terry2

Super Mario Bros. - Bennett & Runte
SUPER MARIO BROTHERS:Mario and Luigi's plumbing business is going down thetubes. Mario is trying to do everything himself -- tooproud to look for help or advice, particularly from his kidbrother.
He thinks they just need that one "big score" to put themback on their feet. (Unfortunately, the City Engineer
seems to have singled Mario out for exclusion from thecity's lucrative contracts.) While Mario isn't one toshare his problems, he is quick to offer Luigi advice onjust about everything -- usually relating things inplumbing terms.
Mario has always wanted to be more than "just a plumber."
But Mario and Luigi are destined to be the world's greatest
plumbers -- once Mario learns how to work with his brotheras a real team. This adventure will teach him that -- it's
the story of how the Mario brothers became the Super MarioBros.
* * * * *THE CHARACTERS:MARIO: Good hearted, with an overabundance of passion.
He is a master plumber, but he usually loses his temper andfixes things by hitting them. He loves women, but scares
them away because he assumes they'll immediately love himback. He loves his brother, but is too proud of his roleas older brother to accept him as an equal. Mario tries todo everything himself, always on the lookout for an"angle."
He thinks he knows how the world works, and tries to passthat knowledge on to his brother, usually in the form of
plumbing analogies: "Women are like old-time sinks. They
run hot or cold. No in between."- 1 -Super Mario Bros. - Bennett & Runte

LUIGI: Luigi is not a simpleton. He just has a simple
approach to life. Luigi considers plumbing an art, always
tinkering, experimenting with the latest materials, making
fixtures that are functional sculptures. A "Renaissance
Plumber." While Mario burns with anger at "the System,"
Luigi is happy to be a Bohemian. Sensitive, optimistic,and helpful -- he's always naively trying to give Mario
help he doesn't want. If Mario gets a late night call fromthe woman downstairs who asks him to come down and "look at
her plumbing," Luigi helpfully shows up ten minutes laterwith a spanner wrench.
DAISY: Princess Toadstool, destined to return to herpeople and lead them to freedom. When we meet her,however, she's waiting tables and working in the theater.
Daisy is a weird combination of born elegance and learned
streetwiseness -- she can be warm and engaging when shewants, or devastatingly insulting to some creep who isbothering her on the street. The poet and artist in her
will be more attracted to Luigi.
* * * * *THE STORY:
Brooklyn, 20 years ago: An old man leaves a baby on thesteps of an orphanage, then is cornered by our villains,
who demand the "princess and the crystal." He defiantly
tossesa locket into the sewers. But without it, the door to thisworld won't stay open long. They are all whisked away...

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Present day: We meet Mario, worming his way in to see theCity Engineer. He's getting shut out of all the city's
lucrative contracts, including the current waterworks
overhaul. This guy seems to have a grudge against Mario.
And vice versa: Mario visits his bathroom on the way out
and "fixes" the pipes.
As Mario comes out to find Luigi, two guys from the bankarrive to repossess the Mario Brothers van. This is thefirst Luigi's heard of any problem. "But all our stuff!"
The guys throw it on the sidewalk, kitchen sink and all.
That night, Mario drowns his sorrows in his usual way -spaghetti sauce. On the TV, we hear reports of higher
unemployment, striking cab drivers, and yet another in aseries of beautiful girls who've mysteriously disappeared.
"What's the world coming to?" asks Mario. "I can't get ajob, I can't get a cab, and pretty soon I won't be able toget a date." Luigi is optimistic -- he's found them a job.
Unfortunately, it's a charity job at the orphanage. Sure,Luigi says, they're working for free, but look at thisincredible maze of ancient pipes -- it's beautiful. We see
their working relationship: While Luigi looks for theright brass fitting, Mario grabs the duct tape. As they
fight over the right approach, the pipes crumble. Theyfind the old locket. While Mario contemplates how best tospend the cash, Luigi shows it to the nun in charge. Asymbol on the locket matches one on an old blanket that wasleft there with a baby... "Yeah? So where is this baby?"
Mario and Luigi meet DAISY, waiting tables at a pizzeria.
They are instantly smitten. Daisy is a frustrated poet -she's thinking about translating the pizza menu into Haiku.
Luigi impresses her by making one up on the spot. To
Mario's relief, she doesn't know anything about the locket.
However, we see the crystal glowing ever so faintly in her
presence.
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As Mario and Luigi both contemplate Daisy, they notice agroup of rival plumbers -- the one that's been getting all
the city contracts. When Daisy leaves, they follow her,followed by Mario and Luigi, who smell a rat.
Daisy is kidnapped by the rival plumbers. Mario and Luigi
give chase, and wind up deep in the sewers, lost. Luigi's
always carries their father's old plumbing guide -- maybe
there's a map or something. He pulls out the locket, too,and behind them, a shimmering passageway opens. They canjust make out the retreating kidnappers and rush to follow,
but they fall down a long winding pipe and land in...
New York? It's similar, but off-kilter, out of whack.
Scaly. Moss covers the buildings, mist covers the ground,and mushrooms seem to pop up from the strangest places...
New Yuck. Mario and Luigi navigate through strange newdangers as they try to make sense of this new world. It'sa world dominated by a lizard-like species that evolved
from the dinosaurs -- at least that's what it says on theplaque in front of the dinosaurs kept at the Central Park
Zoo...
With the help of a baby dinosaur, they narrowly escape theMUGGERS, henchmen of KOOPA, leader of this strange world.
This will be the first action scene sequences in our second
act -- in a world where the action becomes more and more
desperate as the stakes rise -- like being in a video game.
Mario and Luigi find that all the humans in this world live
in a place called simply "The Village." When they arrive,the people are at first hostile, but then, when theyrealize these guys are plumbers, they fall to their knees.
Mario and Luigi are the Plumbers of Prophecy, who aresupposed to come and defeat the evil King Koopa. (WhenKoopa first took power, he had all the plumbers in the land
killed, although later we learn that one escaped -- Marioand Luigi's father.)- 4 -Super Mario Bros. - Bennett & Runte
Mario isn't too sure about all this, but Luigi has always
believed they were destined for great things. Mario isn't
one for fate. "You can't tell me there's some unseen handcontrolling my actions!" Luigi explains to their hoststhat they're looking for a girl, Daisy...
Daisy is proving to be a most uncooperative princess. She
is not responding to any of Koopa's usual charms... We
want to expand her story so that she's not just graduallyeating chocolates and turning into a lizard, but plotting
and then succeeding in escaping -- along with the dozen or
so Brooklyn maidens kidnapped in Koopa's search for theprincess. When Mario and Luigi finally get to the castle,
their rescue will be complicated by trying to find the"right" princess.
Meanwhile, the village people give Mario and Luigi ashining toolbox, and send them off on their quest to rescue
Daisy, perhaps with Toad as their guide. They also haveanother guide -- their father's old plumbing manual. The
magic of "Booklyn" has turned it into a "Talking Book."
Whereas in their home world, we might hear their father'sechoing voice over, now it speaks aloud when opened (giving
away their hiding place the first time). It can answer
questions, too, but only with the words already in thebook. "How fitting," it might say, reading from its
chapter on pipe fittings.

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Mario and Luigi's quest will satirize both the urban
landscape of New York, and the Dungeons and Dragons-typelegends of old. When Mario and Luigi are sent to the Pitof No Return, for example, it's a bar on the 42nd St, so
hip no one can bring themselves to leave once they enter.
To get to King Koopa's Castle, they've got to go through
The Five Burrows -- actual underground tunnels dug by alarge creature. They'll meet Queens, and see the Statue ofLividness (Koopa) out on Statue Island. We want to build
rising jeopardy from Koopa, hightening the action
sequences, and bringing Mario and his brother closer
together.
Mario and Luigi rescue Daisy at the end the second act, butlose the locket to Koopa. Koopa can now proceed with hisplan to conquer our own world, whose humans are apparently
even more pathetic than the ones here. The crystal will
enable him to open a portal between the two dimensions,large enough to move his army through. They just have tofinish work on the pipeway...
The third act has Mario and Luigi working to thwart hisplan, destroying the pipeway, and fixing the worlds biggest
leak -- the interdimensional leak between our two worlds.
Mario and Luigi have the chance to work closely with Daisy,
and we see a natural bond developing between her and Luigi.
Mario sees this and begins to offer advice to his brother,
then stops himself. But Luigi asks him what he thinks.
Mario tells him to just be himself.

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Mario has become the de facto leader, and he rises to theoccasion, planning and heading up the final battle. Hefinds a surprise when they reach the waterworks, his oldnemesis FARLEY, the City Engineer, who, it turns out, is
one of Koopa's minions in disguise, plotting the completionof the tunnel from the other side. In the final battle,Mario and Luigi will banish Koopa, then Mario will have toface off with Farley, while trying to get them all throughthe portal before it closes forever. Luigi has a tearfulgoodbye with the princess who decides to stay behind.
Kissing Mario on the cheek, she tells him, "Mario. You'resuper!"With Farley gone, the Super Mario Bros. have all thebusiness they can handle, helping the city reconstruct thedamaged waterworks. Now if they could only figure out what
to do with Junior...

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