Chris Pratt as Mario? · 9:15pm Sep 26th, 2021
Well, that was something.
For those who didn't watch the Nintendo Direct on Thursday, Nintendo and Universal announced the voice cast and release date for the upcoming Super Mario animated movie (hopefully something that will wash my brain of that live action manure).
On the one hand, it's a pretty solid cast. Jack Black as Bowser is something I had no idea I needed, and Charlie Day as Luigi? Almost spot-on casting there. Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Oeach is also nicely cast (never seen Queen's Gambit personally, because I don't have Netflix). On the other hand, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong and Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong? For one, why are those characters even in this movie? And number two, why did they go to the stoner and SNL Obama?
And then there's....Chris Pratt as Mario.
Ugh. That's probably more bizarre than when Bsn Affleck was cast as Batman (that turned out OK, TBH). It's almost blatant stunt casting on the surface. I knew Charles Martinet was highly unlikely to be cast in the role(s) he's been identified with for 26 years. But man, this is just....baffling.
That being said, I can't say this is just standard Hollywood politics. Nintendo has considerable control over the production process, so the casting process almost certainly was vetted by them. Heck I wouldn't even be surprised if Martinet had a hand in Pratt's casting (as well as Day's).
That said, I'm actually more interested in how the movie will play out.
Let us a-see how ita turns out.
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The nice thing is that the live-action movie set such a low bar, there's nowhere to go but up.
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The movie was so weird. Still, there's hope; the Sonic movie demonstrated video game movies can be half-decent.