The Super Mario Bros. Movie/Production

==Development==
After the critical and commercial failure of the 1993 Super Mario Bros. film adaptation, the Japanese video game company Nintendo became wary of licensing its properties for film adaptations. According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario, the idea for a new Mario film came from bringing their older games to the Virtual Console and other services. Such transitions took time for the company, and Miyamoto recognized that "our content business would be able to develop even further if we were able to combine our long-beloved software with that of video assets, and utilize them together for extended periods". Miyamoto knew that the process of making a film was far different from that of making a video game, and wanted a film expert to lead the effort.
Following the November 2014 hack of Sony Pictures, emails between producer Avi Arad, studio chief Amy Pascal, TriStar Pictures head Tom Rothman, and Sony Pictures Animation president of production Michelle Raimo Kouyate were released, revealing that Sony had been attempting to secure the film rights to the Mario franchise for several years. Arad visited Nintendo in Tokyo in February and July 2014 in an attempt to secure a deal. In October, Arad emailed Pascal and said he had closed the deal with Nintendo. Pascal suggested recruiting Sony Pictures Animation's Hotel Transylvania director Genndy Tartakovsky to help develop the project, while Kouyate said she could "think of 3–4 movies right out of the gate" and hoped to build a "Mario empire". However, after the emails leaked, Arad denied that a deal had been made, stating that negotiations had only begun. BuzzFeed News noted that the emails did not take into account potential conflicts with Sony Pictures' corporate sibling Sony Interactive Entertainment, one of Nintendo's chief competitors.
 
Through Nintendo's work with Universal Parks & Resorts to create Mario-based attractions, later resulting in Super Nintendo World, Miyamoto met Chris Meledandri, founder of Universal Pictures' Illumination animation division. Miyamoto found Meledandri's creative process similar to his own and felt he would be the proper lead for a Mario film. They had started more earnest discussions by 2016, knowing that if they felt it would not work that they could easily walk away. In November 2017, reports emerged that Nintendo was collaborating with Universal and Illumination to make an animated Mario film. Then-Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima clarified that a deal had not been finalized, but that an announcement would come soon. Kimishima hoped that if the deal were successful, a 2020 release date would be possible.
In January 2018, Nintendo announced that the film would progress with Miyamoto and Meledandri co-producing. Meledandri said the film was a "priority" for Illumination and that it would most likely come out in 2022. He added that Miyamoto would be "front and center" during production. In January 2020, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa stated that the film was "moving along smoothly" with an expected 2022 release date. Furukawa also said Nintendo would own the rights to the film, and both Nintendo and Universal would fund the production.
In August 2021, it emerged that Teen Titans Go! creators Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic were directing the film after the discovery of an Illumination animator's LinkedIn profile that included the film in their list. Following the full casting announcement, Horvath and Jelenic were confirmed to be directing, with Matthew Fogel attached as the screenwriter after previously scribing Illumination's Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022). According to Khary Payton, who has collaborated with Horvath and Jelenic on various projects at Warner Bros. Animation, the duo flew to Illumination Studios Paris a month after the release of their first feature film, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, in September 2018.
In September 2022, it was announced by New York Comic Con that the film's teaser trailer would be released on October 6, 2022; the teaser formally revealed the film's title, The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Shortly thereafter, Ed Skudder, who previously worked with Horvath on Unikitty!, confirmed that he worked as head of story on the film.
== Writing ==
Jelenic and Horvath wanted their work on the film to be the opposite of the "irreverent" Teen Titans Go!, aiming to develop a faithful adaptation of the games, which they both felt had not been done before, as well as something "more cinematic" and "more emotional" than Teen Titans Go!. "When people probably first heard our names attached to the movie, they expected we'd do the Teen Titans Go! treatment to Mario", said Jelenic. "But every project we come to, we make new choices depending on who the audience is and what we're going for". Horvath asserted that Nintendo involved themselves with every aspect of the production, "from story to visual development to the animation".
The duo wanted the film to serve as an "origin story" for Mario and Luigi, opting to portray them as "blue-collar guys" by focusing on their previous backgrounds as Italian-American plumbers from New York City in early games (specifically Brooklyn, as in older American media). They also wanted to reflect how gamers win in the games by not giving up in spite of making mistakes, turning that into a character trait for the film's portrayal of Mario. The duo chose to interchange Princess Peach's and Luigi's roles from the games, with Peach helping Mario rescue a kidnapped Luigi, because they felt having them in their original roles was "too straightforward". The duo drew inspiration from Super Mario 3D World (2013) and its portrayal of Peach as a playable character, stating they wanted to focus on her role as the Mushroom Kingdom's monarch and "how strong that person would need to be to protect [the Toads]". For Bowser, they "decided to make that character scary, but the other side of Bowser is somebody who's vulnerable and funny".
==Casting==
In February 2021, Mario voice actor Charles Martinet said the possibility of reprising his role in the film would be a "marvelous thing" and that if he were asked to voice Mario he would "go in and play with great joy and happiness". In August 2021, Sebastian Maniscalco revealed he was voicing Spike, Mario and Luigi's boss from the game Wrecking Crew (1985).
During a September 2021 Nintendo Direct presentation, Shigeru Miyamoto announced that Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, Kevin Michael Richardson, Fred Armisen, and Maniscalco would headline the voice cast and that Martinet would be featured in "surprise cameos". The announcement was met with a mixed reaction from fans; while some welcomed the idea of celebrity actors voicing the characters, others questioned and criticized the choices, in particular Pratt as Mario instead of Martinet (who had voiced the character since 1991) or an Italian actor. Martinet voices the brothers' father as well as a citizen of Brooklyn named Giuseppe, the latter using Mario's game voice. Additionally, voice acting veterans Rino Romano, John DiMaggio, and Jessica DiCicco voiced Mario and Luigi's uncles Tony and Arthur, and mother, respectively, as the intention was to cast actors of Italian ancestry for the brothers' family.
Meledandri said Pratt would not be voicing Mario in a thick Italian accent as Martinet had traditionally done. Voice actor Khary Payton described Pratt's original voice during production as a "New York, Italian guy" and a "cousin to the Sopranos", but the accent was scrapped for sounding too similar to the character Tony Soprano. Voice actress Tara Strong criticized Pratt's casting and expressed a preference for Martinet to voice Mario instead, lamenting what she described to be Hollywood's disregard for professional voice actors. In response to criticism of Pratt's casting, Horvath stated, "For us, it made total sense. He's really good at playing a blue-collar hero with a ton of heart. For the way that Mario is characterized in our film, he's perfect for it." For his part, Pratt acknowledged the character's "passionate fanbase" and that Mario's traditional voice was "the soundtrack to [fans'] youth. You don't want someone to come along and cynically kind of destroy it as a cash grab with a movie. I fully understand that. You do not want that to happen." Regarding his own vocal performance, he encouraged audiences to "come watch the movie. Go watch the movie [...] and then we can talk."
Charlie Day originally voiced Luigi with a New York accent similar to the film Goodfellas (1990) during production. The accent was scrapped when directors told him it sounded too similar to the gangster film, to which Day responded to the change with, "Alright! I think you're wrong, but fine!" Plot details were kept secret from the actors during recording, according to Day, who noted he had to record his dialogue in many different ways, after which the directors selected the version they believed would be best suited for the film.
Upon the trailer's release, both Payton and Eric Bauza confirmed their parts in the film; Payton voices the Penguin King and Bauza voices the Toad General. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Payton recorded his lines in a closet at his home, though he was unsure if he would appear in the final cut.
In response to backlash for voicing Donkey Kong in his normal speaking voice, Rogen explained: "I was very clear that I don't do voices" and "If you want me to be in this movie, then it's going to sound like me and that's it. That was the beginning and end of that conversation." He added further, "I think in the film and in the game, all you seem to know about Donkey Kong is that he throws barrels and does not like Mario very much. And that's what I ran with."
==Animation and design==
The film was animated by Illumination Studios Paris in Paris, France. Production was underway by September 2020, with animation ending in October 2022. Post-production work wrapped by March 2023. Jelenic said that Illumination updated their lighting and rendering technology for the film, with Meledandri claiming that it "pushed the technical and artistic capabilities of [the] studio to new heights".
Jelenic and Horvath wanted the animation to juggle stylized animation with realism, with Horvath claiming that "there are moments of cartoony fun, but [...] we wanted it to feel like a big adventure film and that there are stakes and maybe you believe that these characters can die, so they're not super-squashy and super-stretchy, and we used consistent volume on the characters to make them feel a little more grounded". For the go-karts featured in the film, the directors worked with a vehicle design artist and artists at Nintendo to create go-karts that fit their portrayal in the film while drawing inspiration from their portrayal in the Mario Kart games.
In an interview with GameSpot, Horvath said that he and Jelenic took a "blockbuster approach" when making The Super Mario Bros. Movie: "To me, this is a movie that's been like 40 years in the making, you know, and I've always considered Mario more of an action game. The characters look comedic, but the story is always high stakes, you gotta save the princess or save the world or whatever in the game. So we wanted to reflect that action sensibility." The two brought in artists they knew from television and worked closely with them to craft the film's action sequences. Skudder in particular was crucial in making the action, especially the Rainbow Road sequence. According to Jelenic and Horvath, Skudder spent months working on the sequence, which they also described as the film's most technically challenging. The road itself was a visual effect, and every shot of it had to go through the visual effects department, which was time-consuming and expensive.
Donkey Kong's design was changed for the first time since the video game Donkey Kong Country (1994). For his new design, artists incorporated elements of both his modern design and his original design from his debut appearance in Donkey Kong (1981). For Mario's family, Horvath and Jelenic were given early designs of Mario by Nintendo as references; they ended up using slightly altered versions of those designs in the film.
==Music==
During an October 2022 Nintendo Direct presentation, Meledandri confirmed that Brian Tyler was set to compose the film's score. Tyler worked closely with longtime Mario composer Koji Kondo to incorporate themes from the games. He described the composition as "big", featuring an orchestra, choir and bands, as well as "Italian instruments, accordions, live drums, mandolins [...] whistling human voices", and "eight-bit [sounds]". Recording sessions began on October 17, 2022, at the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Bros. Mixing took place at Skywalker Sound, where Kondo and Miyamoto responded positively to a 15-minute suite of new themes Tyler had written. The film's music references leitmotifs from Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario 3D Land, among other Mario games.
Songs from Jack Black and Keegan-Michael Key were improvised for the film. Black Hydra composed the music for its official trailer, "Super Mushroom", based on the Super Mario Bros. theme. The instrumental was released on November 30, 2022, on YouTube.
In a March 2023 video, Seth Rogen shared that Donkey Kong was introduced in the film accompanied by the title theme music from Donkey Kong 64, "DK Rap", composed by Grant Kirkhope. In contrast to the licensed songs used in the film, Kirkhope did not receive credit for "DK Rap" in the film's end credits, an oversight the composer found disappointing.
Jack Black co-wrote the song "Peaches", wherein Bowser professes his love for Princess Peach, alongside the directors, editor Eric Osmond, and song producer John Spiker. Having Bowser perform a love song was Black's idea. "Peaches" was released on April 7, 2023, with a music video directed by Cole Bennett. According to Black, it was filmed in a few hours. On its release, "Peaches" was #61 on the iTunes streaming chart. It later appeared on the Billboard Hot 100, debuting at #83 and peaking at #56.
==References==
Category:Production