One of the more highly anticipated releases of the spring has to be Illumination's The Super Mario Bros Movie. The last time that the iconic Nintendo characters Mario and Luigi were brought to the big screen it didn't go so well, so fans are hopeful that this new attempt will be the one that brings the video game characters to life properly. And those fans will have their chance to find out even earlier than we thought, as Super Mario Bros. is now set to open a couple of days earlier than previously scheduled.
Instead of opening on Good Friday, April 7, Deadline reports that Super Mario Bros. will now bow on the previous Wednesday, April 5. The specific reason for the change is unclear, but it may have been to align the release with other markets, as the film is set to drop in 60 different regions on its opening day. And with the weekend being a holiday, it's likely that a lot of people are taking extra time off, and may be interested in grabbing a movie on a Wednesday night.
If nothing else a couple of extra days of release will give even more people the chance to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie early, or to give anybody who really loves it the chance to re-watch. There's no real opening weekend competition for the animated film, so the decision to move up the release wasn't to give it any sort of separation from another high-profile movie.
When it was first announced that we would be getting a new theatrical Super Mario Bros. movie, fans weren't sure what to make of it. The attempt to make the Nintendo characters work in live-action...did not work at all. The movie with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi is generally seen as one of the worst adaptations of a video game into a film, and that's even considering that the majority of video game adaptations have not been great.
Even the new movie hasn't been without its own controversies. When Chris Pratt was announced as the voice of Mario fans were curious, to say the least. While the Mario of modern video games barely has a voice at all, whatever you might expect Mario to sound like, for many Chris Pratt was not it. Having said that, there have not been riots in the streets since Mario's voice was revealed.
But if nothing else, the trailers for The Super Mario Bros. Movie have shown us that the new animated film is doing its best to create the characters and worlds of a Super Mario Bros. game accurately. The Mushroom Kingdom has come to live in the movie just as it has at the new Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood.
