Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. News

Is Nintendo considering movie projects again?

By

The one and only time Nintendo endeavored to make a movie out of one of its popular video-game properties, the result — 1993’s disastrous, live-action Super Mario Bros. movie — was an epic failure that soured the company’s relationship with Hollywood from that point forward. However, the iconic game company might be changing its tune, according to a recent interview with the head of the Nintendo’s Entertainment Analysis & Development division.

The comments on Nintendo’s big-screen future were made during a recent earnings report to investors, with Nintendo’s creative mastermind Shigeru Miyamoto suggesting that the company is “potentially” considering future projects in the movie world.

Recommended Videos

“We’ve had, over the years, a number of people who have come to us and said, ‘Why don’t we make a movie together—or we make a movie and you make a game and we’ll release them at the same time?'” said Miyamoto (as reported by Fortune). “Because games and movies seem like similar mediums, people’s natural expectation is we want to take our games and turn them into movies… I’ve always felt video games, being an interactive medium, and movies, being a passive medium, mean the two are quite different.”

Please enable Javascript to view this content

“As we look more broadly at what is Nintendo’s role as an entertainment company, we’re starting to think more and more about how movies can fit in with that,” he continued. “And we’ll potentially be looking at things like movies in the future.”

Updated on 5-16-2016 by Gabe Gurwin: It appears that Nintendo is now using much more concrete language regarding its plans for motion pictures. According to a new interview with CEO Tatsumi Kimishima, the company is planning to have films ready within the next five years. The projects will likely be animated so as to not have a repeat of the Super Mario Bros. fiasco.

In recent years, Nintendo had seemed to soften its stance on its properties appearing in big-screen projects. Recurring Super Mario Bros. villain Bowser appeared in Disney’s Oscar-nominated 2012 animated feature Wreck-It Ralph (pictured above), and the barrel-tossing franchise headliner Donkey Kong (as well as several other Nintendo characters) had a featured role in this summer’s underwhelming live-action feature Pixels (which, fortunately, doesn’t seem to have soured Nintendo all over again).

Rumors have also suggested that a Legend of Zelda series could be in the works at Netflix, but Nintendo has denied this report.

There’s currently no official word on which characters, if any, could be making the leap from console to screen, or when any such projects might begin development.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Rick Marshall
Rick Marshall
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
How to preorder the Nintendo Switch 2
The Switch 2 on a blue background.

Now that the Switch 2 has made its official debut, everyone is ready to put their money down to get their hands on this new console. The initial trailer showcased just a glimpse of the system but did put many minds at ease by confirming backwards compatibility. Sadly, the one major piece of information we were hoping for, the release date, was missing from the reveal. We know it is coming in 2025, and that there will be events held around the world to play it early, but most of us just want to preorder the system so we know we will have it when it does finally launch. You can't technically preorder the Switch 2 quite yet, but we can show you how to be the first to know when you can.
How to preorder the Switch 2
Nintendo Switch 2 – First-look trailer

As of the time of this writing, preorders for the Switch 2 are not open at any retailer. We suspect they will open once the full release date and price is shared, likely on April 2 during the next Direct. However, there are some retailers that are currently allowing customers to sign up for email notifications when preorders become available. Here are all the current places you can go to sign up for notifications:
Best Buy
You can visit the Best Buy store and sign up for their email notifications. Emails will include information about the console, but also games and other things related to the Switch 2.
GameStop
GameStop has launched its product page for the Switch 2 and also offers emails related to pre-orders, news, and upcoming games.
When will preorders start for the Switch 2?

Read more
5 games we want to see on the Nintendo Switch 2
Astrion holds his chin in Baldur's Gate 3.

Now that the Nintendo Switch 2 has had its formal reveal and will be arriving in 2025, we can finally shift our focus from all hardware leaks and rumors to the most important part of any console: the software. The Switch 2 was revealed with footage of Mario Kart 9 and details about its backwards compatibility, but that leaves a lot of room to hope and speculate for other games to fill the lineup of upcoming games. With a host of new features, as well as more power to keep up with games that wouldn't be possible on the Switch, a world of possibility has opened up for games we would love to play on the Switch 2. These are our top seven games that we would love to see hit Nintendo's latest console.
Crusader Kings 3

Hardcore strategy games have typically been a genre locked to PCs. While plenty of recent games have done an admiral job of adapting the complex controls and systems for controllers, the genre is clearly best played with a mouse in almost every example. The Switch 2's new Joy-cons may look like a larger version of the original, but they come with a simple yet brilliant feature that opens the doors for these types of experiences to sing. By holding the Joy-con on its side and placing it on a flat surface, you can use it as a mouse pointer. This would be the ideal way to play a game like Crusader Kings 3, which is built on being one of the most dynamic and deep simulations set in the Middle Ages. Being able to take your empire on the go and still be able to easily manage all the systems without fumbling over the controls would easily get us addicted all over again.
Baldur's Gate 3

Read more
The Nintendo Switch 2 marks the end of the ‘toy’ video game console
The Switch 2 on a blue background.

I still have a clear memory of Christmas Day 2001. After a morning of eagerly unwrapping my gifts, my parents rolled out one more surprise that I'd been so desperately anticipating. I tore off the wrapping paper and there it was: the Nintendo GameCube. Without a second of hesitation, I pulled it out of the box and started poking and prodding every button on the little box. It wasn't just a fancy new electronic device; it was a toy.

That used to be the dual function of a video game console. Each one was unpredictable, bringing entirely new innovations or gimmicks that begged to be played with as much as the games. The ones that didn't at least got playful with their design. That's slowed with each passing generation. Vibrant colors has been replaced with black and white plastic. Xbox console designs now border on brutalist. Everything is slowly converging to one unified vision of what a video game console looks like.

Read more