The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Disney film series)

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a Disney film and media franchise developed by The Walt Disney Company and Nintendo. It is based on Mario video game franchise. The franchise currently consists of two released films, with a third in production, and a spin-off TV series.
== Background ==
Development for a film adaptation of the Super Mario Bros. video games began in 1993 during production of DIC Entertainment's television show The Super Mario Bros. Super Show. Michealene Risley, the newly appointed consumer products director who helped license Mario for Adventures, negotiated with several Hollywood producers. Nintendo announced in March 1990 that plans for Super Mario Bros. live-action had been folded and instead, it would reboot the series with a completely computer-animated film. Nintendo of America CEO Minoru Arakawa was wary of damaging the brand, citing the commercial and critical failures of the Street Fighter (1994). Despite Arakawa and Tom Kalisnke's concerns, Nintendo and Sega was enthusiastic. 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.
== Development ==
=== The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2017) ===
The suggestion for a film based on Super Mario Bros. was first put forward by Jordan Kerner during a script meeting. Kerner met Shigeru Miyamoto, founder of Nintendo, with an initial draft of the script. One month after their meeting, Kerner went to Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto to meet Hiroshi Yamauchi. He pitched to Yamauchi the storyline which led to Nintendo receiving interest in the project. Kerner left with a $2 million contract giving the temporary control of the character of Mario over to Kerner. It was revealing that Disney had been attempting to secure the film rights to the Mario franchise for several years. Nintendo retained merchandising rights for the film through a "creative partnership" with Disney. According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario, the idea for the first 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", until 2010 after a draft of Kerner's film adaptation of Night at the Museum (2011) was read by Miyamoto's heirs, that they accepted Kerner's offer. Kerner soon began developing the 3-D CGI feature film with Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation. Then, in October 2011, Nintendo announced that Walt Disney Pictures confirmed to making the first Mario movie to collaborating with Jordan Kerner. According to Sony, Avi 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. 
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. Miyamoto met John Lasseter, founder of Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Pixar Animation Studios animation division. Miyamoto found Lasseter'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 2011, knowing that if they felt it would not work that they could easily walk away. In January 2012, Nintendo announced that the film would progress with Lasseter, Miyamoto, and Kerner co-producing. Lasseter said the film was a "priority" and that it would most likely come out in 2017. When multiple major studios approached Rovio to discuss the production of the film adaptation in 2010, Miyamoto eventually decided to have Nintendo establish its own in-house animation studio and have it work on the film, rather than risk losing creative control in allowing a third-party studio to produce it. He added that Miyamoto would be "front and center" during production. In January 2013, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa stated that the film was "moving along smoothly" with an expected 2017 release date. Furukawa also said Nintendo would own the rights to the film, and both Nintendo and Disney would fund the production. The Super Mario Bros. Movie was first officially announced on August 10, 2013, at the D23 Expo, with a February 2017 release date. 
In July 2015, it emerged that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller after previously co-directly The Lego Movie and 22 Jump Street (2014). Following the full casting announcement, Lord and Miller were confirmed to be directing, Shrek 2 writers, J. David Stem and David N. Weiss wrote the screenplay along with with Zookeeper writers Jay Scherick and David Ronn; Stem and Weiss also wrote the story attached as the screenwriter. In September 2015, through Nintendo's work with Universal Parks & Resorts to create Mario-based attractions, later resulting in Super Nintendo World, Lasseter wants Universal Pictures' Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri to be as producer after doing The Smurfs (2016) and Rovio Entertainment and Illumination's The Angry Birds Movie (2016). In January 2016, Disney and Nintendo announced that Meledandri confirmed that will as producer. In August 2016, it was announced by New York Comic Con that the film's teaser trailer would be released on September 6, 2016. Shortly thereafter, Josie Trinidad and Jim Reardon were confirmed that he worked as head of story on the film. Cinematographer Robert Richardson was brought on as a visual consultant to assist in the creation of realistic lighting.
=== The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2 (2023) ===
After the critical and commercial success of the 2017 The Super Mario Bros. Movie film adaptation, the Japanese video game company Nintendo became trustful of licensing its properties for film adaptations. In March 2017, Furukawa said that Nintendo was interested in producing more animated films based on its intellectual properties if the Mario Bros. film is successful. In a Variety cover story before the film's release, producer Kerner expressed interest in developing a sequel that focused on Mario and Peach' friendship and further developed Bowser. In April 2017, Pratt also expressed interest in a sequel featuring several characters from the video games, including Yoshi, who appeared in a mid-credits scene in the first film.
In November 2018, Disney CEO Bob Iger and Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa confirmed that a sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie was in development, with the writers J. David Stem, David N. Weiss, Jay Scherick and David Ronn. Clark Spencer, Jordan Kerner, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller will produce the sequel, having previously co-produced the first film alongside Shigeru Miyamoto, while Chris Meledandri, Pratt (who voices Mario), Ezra Swerdlow, Yusuku Beppu will return from the first film as executive producers. In July 2019, Lord and Miller confirmed they would return to direct the film. Walt Disney Animation Studios also released the film under their banner, despite having dropped out of co-producing the project beforehand and had not co-produced the first film either. Walt Disney Animation president Spencer revealed that the film would be using an animation style similar to Big Hero 6, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs. The Machines and The Bad Guys. One Cool Films co-financed the film.
In August 2021, the film title was announced as The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2. In May, a synopsis of the story was released as Walt Disney Picturessubmitted a copyright registration to the U.S. Copyright Office catalog. Karey Kirkpatrick and John Whittington was announced as a co-screenwriter. Additionally, Jared Bush and Phil Johnston attached as a co-directors. In September 2021, after the new cast announced, Fast & Furious star Vin Diesel confirmed and announced that will serve as producer. Lord and Miller said that they had told Disney and Nintendo the sequel would be the same size as The Super Mario Bros. Movie, but it ended up having the largest crew of any animated film ever, with around 8,000 people working on it.
The film is inspired by the Sega video games Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992) and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994), but is not a direct adaptation of either. Rianda described the film as "a melting pot" of ideas from several Mariogames. Lord revealed that the film's plot was cited on Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Hotel Transylvania: Escape 2 Internet (2018), and The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021). Former Gravity Falls alumni Dana Terrace(creator of The Owl House) and Matt Braly (creator of Amphibia) worked as storyboard artists on the film.
== Films ==
=== Other ===
In April 2022, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 director Jeff Fowler expressed interest in a future potential crossover film between Sonic the Hedgehog and the Walt Disney Animation Studios' Mario film, tentatively entitled "Mario Versus Sonic", agreeing that "it would take a bit of rights-wrangling and negotiations [to] make it happen", but concluding that "there's a little twinkle in his eye about it all".