For much of my life, Nintendo getting serious Hollywood movies was a thing of fantasy. Super Mario Bros. was a disaster so bad that it seemed it scared the game company away from making movies completely. Of course, The Super Mario Bros. Movie got it right, and after making bank at the box office, the Japanese gaming company seems primed to try out other franchises.
With The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on the way, and a Legend of Zelda movie filming as well, some might think the long-rumored Metroid movie will happen, or maybe even something with Star Fox and Kirby. I have a different idea, and it involves an adaptation centered around one of the more obscure Nintendo titles, F-Zero.
Nintendo Should Make A Movie In The F-Zero Universe
The F-Zero franchise is one of Nintendo's more forgotten titles, and I would wager more people are familiar with one of its main characters, Captain Falcon, from playing the Super Smash Bros. series rather than the games themselves. Despite that, the futuristic racing game lives on in the Nintendo catalog, and every so often gets an entry that captivates its fans, if only for a short while.
F-Zero doesn't get a ton of love compared to the other Nintendo franchises, which I think makes it perfect fodder for a video game adaptation. It's a name that people recognize, but I wager a vast majority know very little about it. In fairness, there's not much to tell beyond it being a racing game set in the future, but that's perfect for more reasons that we'll get into.
Many Of The Characters Have Interesting Backstories That Could Fuel Storytelling
F-Zero has always had a colorful cast of characters, ranging from the likes of bounty hunters to intergalactic warlords who resemble demons. There's even a genetically engineered dinosaur created by scientists to be a professional racer. Why scientists would do that, I have no clue, but I love that Bio Rex exists, and would love to see that in a movie.
If those initial descriptions don't make it abundantly clear, I think this would be a movie that needs to be a bit campy. Almost all the racers are larger-than-life figures with stories that go beyond what one might find with the typical professional racer. I also think this movie would be better served as a PG-13 feature for sure, rather than an all-ages affair, based on the storytelling.
F-Zero Is Just A Racing Game, Leaving The Field Wide Open For Storytelling
There are some very bare-bones details to get right about F-Zero to make a good movie. As long as it's set in the future where lazy billionaires create a reckless racing league for entertainment, and add some of the known characters to the story, the rest is fair game. Sure, there are cutscenes in some of the games, but a bulk of this action takes place in souped-up space vehicles.
Call me crazy, but I think the fact that there isn't a ton of story attached to the F-Zero franchise makes it ripe for whoever writes a script to do a lot of worldbuilding and shape it in a lot of unique ways. I think the biggest challenge would be crafting it in a way that doesn't feel like a ripoff of Guardians of the Galaxy, but I'm sure there are more than a few writers in Hollywood up to that challenge.
I've Been Hungry For More Outlandish Racing Movies Since Speed Racer
Remember The Wachowski's Speed Racer movie? I'm sure many remember that it exists, but it seems that a lot of the world slept on this criminally underrated cult classic. In some ways, I think the movie was ahead of its time, but that the computer-generated effects of the day weren't quite up to the task of what can be done now.
I'm not saying that F-Zero should be a spiritual successor to Speed Racer, but I think there are some unavoidable parallels in looking at two competitive racing franchises that are both rooted in Japanese culture. The difference here is that a movie like F-Zero could have an edge to it that I think Speed Racer never did. Once that's in the mix, it becomes more of a Fast and Furious sci-fi adventure, rather than a campy kids movie.
I Have A Pitch For Who Should Play Captain Falcon
As mentioned, Captain Falcon is more or less the most recognizable face of the F-Zero series. It would make sense if a movie were centered around the veteran bounty hunter, who is said to be in his late 30s. After looking through the list of Hollywood's male actors in that age range who have a jawline strong enough to make that helmet really shine, one surprising name felt like the perfect choice to play the character.
It's Zac Efron. He's ripped, he can be dramatic, and we've also seen him lean into comedy. He can't sing, despite his starring role in High School Musical, but fortunately, I haven't known that to be a part of Captain Falcon's lore. He'd be an unconventional pick for sure, but I think it fits because F-Zero is an unconventional choice for a video game movie.
Will an F-Zero movie ever be made? I sure hope so, though I think Nintendo would certainly pursue a lot of other projects before deciding on a big-budget adaptation of a game that is arguably less popular than games like Star Fox, which remain hits despite not getting a ton of exposure in recent years. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be a great idea, though, and I'm hoping that, eventually, should Nintendo reach levels of success where it starts to run out of things to adapt, F-Zero gets a chance.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is due out in theaters on April 3rd. I am so thrilled to be living in a time where Nintendo characters are getting their own movies, and I hope this trend continues in the decades to come.
