Yes, I Promise It’s Real
Way back in 2017, life was good for Mario fans – Mario Odyssey had just been released to critical acclaim, and it had just been announced that a Super Mario Bros. animated movie was in the works with industry juggernaut Illumination Entertainment (the studio responsible for the Minions) at the helm and Shigeru Miyamoto himself heavily involved. Since then there hasn’t been a whole lot of news about the project – we knew that they’re hoping for a 2022 release window, but not a whole lot else. Today, however, Miyamoto made an appearance at the latest Nintendo Direct to reveal some of the movie’s cast. And we gotta say, it’s not quite what we were expecting.Â
First up, the leading man: Everyone’s favorite Italian plumber/princess rescuer will be played by none other than Chris Pratt. Yes, you ready that right, the Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World star will be lending his voice to the project. If that’s not weird enough, his cowardly brother Luigi will be played by Charlie Day of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia fame.
Still with me? It’s not a joke, I promise.
Princess Peach will be voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy, and Keegan-Michael Key (The Key from Key & Peele) will be Toad. When it comes to villains, a couple of Mario’s iconic enemies will be showing up – of course there’s Bowser, voiced by Jack Black, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek and Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike. But that’s not all: two more iconic Nintendo characters were revealed. Cranky Kong will be played by Fred Armisen, and the big ape himself, Donkey Kong, will be voiced by… Seth Rogen. Yeah. Still not joking.
Interestingly, the voice of Mario that we all know and love, Charles Martinet, will also be in the movie, although we don’t exactly know who he’ll be playing – all we know is that he’s there for “surprise cameos”. We haven’t got any more information about the Mario movie, unfortunately – Miyamoto said that they hope to be able to show a proper trailer soon, but for now we’re just going to have to imagine what this all-star cast will do to our beloved characters.
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