The famously family-friendly Nintendo company is exploring other animated films beyond the upcoming Mario movie project.
We’ve known for a while that Nintendo is developing an animated feature film based upon the adventures of their most enduring and popular star: the Italian plumber, Mario. The company, who is famously protective of its brand, has been working with Illumination Entertainment – who produced the Despicable Me films – although no progress on the project has yet been made public.
However, it seems that Nintendo may be happy with the progress being made as it’s announced today that it’s now exploring the possibility of developing other animated franchises too.
The company’s global president, Shuntaro Furukawa, revealed this promising nugget: “Animation, in general, is something that we are looking into, and not just this franchise. Although the ways we are expanding our IP are increasing, we are very, very careful about where and how our IP is licensed. We are not deploying our characters and worlds merely to increase public exposure. [Any project] must make sure that the results are true to the players’ experiences, and that they would never prevent Nintendo’s developers from making another unique game featuring the same characters.”
So, whilst there is still a concern about safeguarding the valuable nature of its characters, it does appear that we might be getting some other Nintendo projects on the go, if all goes well. Perhaps a Zelda film or maybe Metroid?
Nintendo has been famously protective of their characters’ treatment in film adaptations ever since the disastrously received adaptation of Super Mario Bros back in 1993. It appears though that finally, things may be changing, especially as these projects are animated so filmmakers can hew closer to the original characters. We’ll let you know as we hear more.
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