The live-action Super Mario Bros. made history for being the first video game adaptation to hit the big screen. Sadly, this particular film is considered one of the worst video game movies of all time. According to the film’s star John Leguizamo, Disney (who was responsible for the film's distribution rights) "was not happy” with the live-action adaptation film’s initial cut.
Super Mario Bros. came out in 1993; a low box office of $38.9 million against its $42-48 million budget was paired with negative reviews which claimed it lacked the spirit of the video game it was based on. As the Super Mario Bros. actor Leguizamo broke down his most iconic characters on GQ, he explained that the original take of his fantasy-adventure film was a whole lot darker.
[The directors] had this dark, dark vision that Disney was not okay with so there was all this butt-heading that was incredible. That party scene? Those were all strippers from North Carolina that they put on the set and they had them in the most revealing clothes and costumes. Disney was not happy ... They had to cut a lot of it, blow it out, CGI it with whatever bad technology they had back in the day.)
Wow, so Super Mario Bros. would have been much more adult-oriented. I can understand why Disney wasn’t happy with that kind of adult content if they wanted this movie to appeal to children too. John Leguizamo continued to talk about how he went into this movie believing it would be a hit and is still proud of being a part of it despite the negative reception. He found it groundbreaking to have his role as Luigi be part of his highly diverse career as it was considered “unheard of” at the time to hire a Latin actor to play such a big role. In fact, this was a criticism Leguizamo made with the animated reboot for having “backward” casting of all-American actor Chris Pratt as the voice of Mario.
As The Super Mario Bros. Movie came out earlier this month, this helped many people reflect on the 1993 film that first brought the Mario and Luigi characters to life. Seth Rogen, who voices Donkey Kong, remembered watching the original ‘90s adaptation when he was 11 and how terrible he thought it was. In fact, he said it was the first bad movie he ever saw in his life. Rocky Morton, the director of 1993’s Super Mario Bros., felt the reason his movie was so awful was that the original script written was forced to be changed with those working on the movie not happy with the new script developments. That frustration is understandable since it was like having to make a brand-new movie from scratch again.
With the live-action Super Mario Bros. movie not faring well, you would think the new animated adaptation would have to be better. Especially because in this case, Mario video game creator Shigeru Miyamoto was heavily involved in the project as co-producer. Unfortunately, The Super Mario Bros. Movie critical reviews were split as critics loved the visuals, but were disappointed in the story direction. But on the bright side, the new animated feature became a box-office record breaker as the highest-grossing film for a video game adaptation and for movies, in general, this year. Plus, Rotten Tomatoes’ audience rating for the CGI adventure film is more positive at 96% compared to the critical rating of 59%. There may also be Oscar talk surrounding the movie thanks to Jack Black’s viral hit song “Peaches.” I’m crossing my fingers for that nomination just so we can see the Bowser voice actor on that Oscars stage to perform it.
It’s hard to tell if Super Mario Bros. would have been better if they stuck with the darker, original script. But even with the lighter script that the animated feature had, the critics still weren’t impressed. It proves that one thing these two movies had in common was the positive fan reactions outweighed what the critics said. You can join the masses and watch the 2023 movie release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie in theaters now.
