Nintendo, arguably the most famous video game company in the world, is finally taking on feature films. Since the disastrous reaction to the live-action Super Mario Bros. movie in 1993, the company has been very protective of its various video game character. Aside from the animated Pokémon movies, the video game publisher had been very cautious about selling the rights to their iconic brands to movie studios. This seemed like a smart decision as for many decades, movie adaptations of popular video games like Assassin's Creed, Hitman, and Warcraft had been failures with fans and critics.
But in the mid-2010s, around the time Marvel Studios was having great success with the MCU and taking control of the creative directions of their characters, Nintendo started to look into feature films. 2019 saw the release of Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, a live-action Pokémon movie and the first feature-length film based on a Nintendo Property in 26 years. When Nintendo partnered with Universal Studios to make a Mario-themed part of their theme parks, it was clear the intention was to collaborate on movies.
Sure enough, Universal Pictures' popular animated studio Illumination Entertainment is collaborating with Nintendo on a Super Mario Bros. movie. The film will feature an all-star celebrity voice cast including Christ Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor Joy, Seth Rogen, Jack Black, Keegan Michael-Key, and many more. The trailer was recently released online.
In addition, Nintendo also purchased Dynamo Studios, a CGI animation company with the intention of making more films and television properties based on Nintendo games. The company has an impressive catalog of exclusive titles that would make for great video games, and here are the eight we want to see as a movie.
Pikmin
Released in 2001, Pikmin tells the story of Captain Olimar who crash lands on an alien planet and has 30 days to gather stranded parts of his ship before he dies. He discovers sentient plant life beings called Pikmin who follow his leadership, and who assist him on the strange planet and face off against a wide variety of other alien creatures.
Pikmin has a bright colorful aesthetic that lends itself to an animated movie, and the plot essentially can boil down to a kid-friendly version of The Martian on a planet that resembles a Hio Miyazawa movie. Pikman has a simple setup, but a world worth of movie potential.
Yoshi
Speaking of colorful characters, Yoshi has the potential to be the next major animated kids franchise that could overtake the Minions if done right. A simple design, a vast array of colors, and a whole island of these adorable pre-historic dinosaurs has a wonderful animated film written all over it.
The film could follow a singular Yoshi, or it could feature Mario as the two characters are often so closely associated with one another. They could incorporate another popular Nintendo character and make it mesh with Yoshi. Nintendo should know that when they decide to make a Yoshi movie, every kid will be asking for a Yoshi stuffed animal for that holiday season.
Donkey Kong
When it comes to video games, Donkey Kong is an iconic name that is known the world over. He and Mario both debuted in 1981 and since then, the character has gone on to have his own profitable video game franchise.
Donkey Kong seems pretty set to get a movie adaptation, as Seth Rogen will voice the character in the upcoming Super Mario Movie. Donkey Kong has its own great supporting cast of characters that would make great movie characters with its own villains, lore, and plenty of great stories to draw from. Donkey Kong could also make a further link to the Mario franchise, further establishing a connected Nintendo shared universe of films.
Starfox
A sci-fi action-adventure movie with a cast of anthropomorphic animals has box office smash hit written all over it. The pitch is basically Zootopia meets Star Trek with a little bit of Top Gun. The project would likely be a CGI movie and could feature some high-stakes space battles, colorful characters that the audience could become attached to, and also aesthetically a very different type of blockbuster film and has plenty of material to draw on for sequels.
Kirby
Kirby is a character that is ideal for an animated movie. Even audiences who haven't played a video game likely recognize the pink ballon as an iconic character online through gifs and images. Kirby is a simple character which makes him incredibly marketable. He also has an impressive supporting cast like the villain King Dee Dee and the sometimes foe sometimes ally Meta Knight who himself could be popular enough to lead his own film. There is plenty to work with from the Kirby franchise to make an entertaining movie.
Metroid
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Metroid follows an intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran across the galaxy. Ever since she premiered, Samus has been a popular fan-favorite character and the world of Metroid has delighted generations of fans. John Woo almost directed a feature film version of the game in the 2000s, and recently Captain Marvel star Brie Larson has expressed a desire to play Samus in a feature film. The franchise would lend itself to a big-budget science fiction film, one that could draw heavily from outer space horror like Alien and Event Horizon. There is high demand for a Metroid movie, one which Nintendo should cash in on.
Legend of Zelda
The Mario franchise is certainly Nintendo's most iconic franchise, but The Legend of Zelda is probably the most well-reviewed franchise Nintendo owns. The series has a vast mythology with various timelines, but all centered around three main characters: The hero Link, Princess Zelda, and the villainous Ganon.
There is a beautiful simplicity to the series, from its gorgeous world designs to the basic good vs evil story at its heart that feels like a classic fairy tale. The Legend of Zelda could be translated as either a live-action or animated film and still take audiences' breaths away. The demand is there as The Legend of Zelda topped fan surveys for the most wanted video game adaptation, so it is likely a high priority for Nintendo.
Super Smash Bros.
In an age of cinematic universes, team-up movies, and crossover films it seems like both an inevitability and an impossibility that a Super Smash Bros. movie will be made. The legendary game series is a fighting game that pulls in various Nintendo characters and even characters from other publishers like Solid Snake, Bayonetta, Mega-Man, Pac-Man, and Sonic the Hedgehog.
This is one of the most popular video game series in the world, and the chance of a movie featuring Mario, Link, Samus, Fox, Pikachu, Kirby, Donkey Kong, and Yoshi seems like a $1 billion movie. How they would pull this off if some series are live-action and others are animated is unclear, but there is no denying that the announcement of Nintendo making their own films is easily the first idea every fan thought of.