Nintendo has confirmed that Donkey Kong's new design in Donkey Kong Bananza was actually what inspired his look in the movie, not the other way around.
When the Nintendo Switch 2 was first revealed with a tiny snippet of what we would later find out is Mario Kart World, people were taken aback by the new look for Donkey Kong, with many saying they had changed him to match his movie design. However, Nintendo has confirmed that this isn't the case, and in fact, Bananza was the source of inspiration for the design used in the movie.
