Super Mario Bros. Movie Concept Art Shows Unused Nintendo Character
Here's what Daisy might have looked like in The Super Mario Bros. Movie!
When The Super Mario Bros. Movie released in theaters last year, it featured a plethora of familiar faces from the Mushroom Kingdom, including popular characters like Donkey Kong, and even obscure ones like Spike. However, not every Mario family character was able to make it into the movie, including Princess Daisy. The fan favorite character might have been hard to squeeze into the movie's limited runtime, but a piece of concept art shared by artist and story developer Jed Diffenderfer shows Daisy in the middle of the action alongside heroes like Mario, Toad, and Yoshi.
The image showcasing the battle can be found below. Readers can find another image of Daisy alongside Peach at Diffenderfer's website right here.
As noted by Nintendo Life, these images should not suggest that Princess Daisy was ever seriously considered for the movie, or that she ended up being cut. A lot of the images on Diffenderfer's website suggest these were early concepts before the story really started to take shape. In fact, the battle scene art features other characters that didn't make it into the movie, such as Chargin' Chuck. And while Yoshis did appear in the movie, they didn't have much of a role to play.
The Next Mario Movie
On Mario Day this month, Nintendo and Illumination officially announced that they have started production on a new movie set to release in 2026. At this time, details are very slim, and we have no idea what to expect from the film. If it is a direct sequel, it will probably pick up from the previous movie's cliffhanger, which showed a Yoshi egg opening in the sewers beneath Brooklyn.
Presumably, a new Mario movie will introduce new Nintendo characters, and Daisy would make a lot of sense, given the fact that she's one of the franchise's most recognizable female heroes. Daisy has often been shown as a love interest for Luigi, so she could also end up appearing in a Luigi's Mansion spin-off film, which is something actor Charlie Day has expressed an interest in doing.
Why Daisy Wouldn't Have Worked in The Super Mario Bros. Movie
If Daisy does appear in a future Mario movie, it would be interesting to see how the character is introduced. Daisy hasn't gotten a lot of depth over the years, and the first movie established that humans aren't really a thing in the Mushroom Kingdom; Mario and Luigi came from Brooklyn, while Peach arrived under mysterious circumstances as a baby. The movie would have had to explain where Daisy comes from, and how she ended up the princess of Sarasaland. Covering those elements in a sequel would make a lot more sense than the first film, as there was already more than enough to cover!
Are you disappointed Daisy didn't make it into The Super Mario Bros. Movie? Would you like to see her in the sequel? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!