Nintendo Looks To Broaden Their Horizons With A Feature Film

Growing up in the ’80s and ’90s meant an intimate understanding and love of all things Nintendo. From The Legend of Zelda to Super Mario Brothers. That meant supporting Nintendo throughout all of their endeavors, even the rather ridiculous live-action adaptation of Super Mario Brothers featuring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. Realistically, most of us know that Captain Lou Albano was by far the better Mario, he even taught a generation of kids to “do the Mario.”



Admittedly, Nintendo doesn’t think much of these adaptations, especially the film, which has kept the company away from that industry for years now. According to NintendoEverything, though, that might be changing in a hurry. In an interview translated from Japanese outlet Asahi, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima spoke about the company’s intention to make a possible feature film within the next two the three years, although in pure Nintendo fashion he was vague and dismissive when it came to details.

“Our primary goal is to increase the number of people who know our IPs. Our core business is to create games and hardware, but the question becomes how to make that business more effective. And of course simple advertisement is no good. So we’d like to create other businesses that can support that goal.”

So while he wouldn’t commit on a time frame, if we’d see Zelda or Mario heading to a big screen, or if it would be animated or live action, he does seem intent on releasing a film to attempt to appeal to a broader audience. The disappointing sales of the WiiU is most likely behind the idea of pushing to win back audiences worldwide, while the 3DS has been a huge success, showing that there is still an audience for Nintendo’s product, they just haven’t been able to reach that audience with their home consoles. Hopefully the impending Nintendo NX is able to bring some of that Nintendo magic back to the world of home consoles. That will ease the pain while we wait for one of these (possible) movies.

(Via NintendoEverything/Asahi)

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