Bowser Dominates First Trailer For ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’

As promised, Nintendo dropped the first teaser for Universal and Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie. And it’s very much a teaser, with most of its 145-second runtime given to Jack Black’s Bowser/King Koopa sacking a penguin kingdom and stealing a star. We do briefly meet Mario (with just a single line from Chris Pratt, who sounds like… Chris Pratt), with Keenan-Michael Key’s Toad acting as a proverbial guide through the Mushroom Kingdom. The last bit features Charlie Day’s Luigi racing from peril and hiding in a castle. There’s no sign of Anya Taylor-Joy’s Princess Peach, Seth Rogen’s Donkey Kong or the rest of the gang. Nonetheless, it’s an animated Super Mario Bros. flick from the folks who made Despicable Me and Sing.

The biggest takeaway is that it’s visually gorgeous and (thus far) looks and feels more like a DreamWorks toon than an Illumination feature. That’s neither criticism nor compliment, but the ‘comedic action-adventure fantasy’ feels closer to Kung Fu Panda than The Secret
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Life of Pets, while the breakneck intensity of the action (relatively speaking) reminded me of the first Puss in Boots. Nonetheless, they are both owned by ComcastCMCSA
, and the film is directed by the co-creators of Teen Titans Go! so we can (hopefully) expect self-mocking commentary and deeply nihilistic anti-moralizing. Okay, probably not the last thing, but we can hope. It’s an announcement teaser, with most of the goodies being held for whenever the next trailer drops (December with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish?).

I am surprised they held back on Chris Pratt’s vocals since you might as well let the Internet have their fun and get it out of their system now. No matter; I’m sure the voice will sound like a skewed version of Pratt’s voice. I’m guessing he will not try a comically exaggerated Italian accent. To whatever extent Pratt is a draw for general audiences, you want kids to recognize him. And yes, worst Chris/best Chris social media discourse aside, Pratt is a relative movie star (and television star, as The Kill List had much better ratings than Chris Pine’s I Am the Night) and an added value element for a movie like this. Ditto Jack Black as the main baddie.

The core hook is that it’s a big-budget (presumably over/under $80 million, as is usual for Illumination) Super Mario Bros. cartoon. The combination of Nintendo, the Mario Bros. IP (my kids knew who Mario and Luigi were before they could hold a controller) and a genuine brand-name animation studio makes this a likely contender for the biggest video game-based movie of all time. Ironically, a gross slightly higher than the ‘disappointing’ $430 million total of The Secret Life of Pets 2 would give it the title. Right now, the record holders are still the $428-$440 million likes of Rampage, Detective Pikachu and Warcraft. The Super Mario Bros. Movie, opening April 7, 2023, could quickly become the first such film to crack $450 million, let alone $500 million and beyond.