Nintendo Hopes To Announce An Animated Super Mario Movie Soon

When Nintendo attempted to bring Super Mario to the big screen, it was back in 1993, and…it wasn't pretty. It was a live-action mess featuring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper, and it was the stuff of box-office nightmares, not even making back its skyrocketing budget.

Since that time, Nintendo has been extremely cautious when it comes to its properties being represented on other mediums, but it might just be relaxing 25 years later, as it could be announcing a new animated (no, not live-action) Super Mario movie very soon.

Back in November, the company was reportedly looking to team up with Illumination Entertainment – the studio that made the Despicable Me films and The Secret Life of Dogs – for an animated adventure. Today, while speaking in Kyoto Shimbun, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima confirmed that he hopes that an agreement will be coming soon to get the Super Mario movie made. That's not an official announcement, by any means, but Kimishima noted that, once the agreement is made, it'll be confirmed.

Furthermore, Kimishima believes that the film could be released by 2020 – which would be timely, as Universal has a number of exhibits based around the world of Super Mario (including a huge theme park overseas) set to open around the same time.

Considering how cozy Nintendo and Universal have gotten lately with the theme park stuff, it wouldn't be a surprise to see them team up officially for a big-screen endeavor – and a better one than whatever that 1993 dreck was. But nothing is quite official yet, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Who knows, maybe the company will say something during its proposed Nintendo Direct special that's supposed to be happening later this week. We'll certainly keep you informed.

Now, what if Nintendo and Universal did a nice little team-up game in the process – say, Mario and the Minions? Hey, it worked for the Rabbids, right?