Sony to Produce New Super Mario Brothers Movie

So… I’m… not really sure what to make of this, so… lets... just get the info out of the way first and then we can try our hand at analysis.

As you know, Sony Pictures was hacked not too long ago, and from those hacks a bunch of information about their practices, plans, and products has been released to the public, especially regarding their schemes down at Hollywood. A lot of it still hasn’t been shuffled through, but an especially interesting nugget has resurfaced, according to the folks down at Buzzfeed, that will frankly blow your mind just about as hard as it blew mine. To quote:

"I am the proud father of mario the animated film [sic]," producer Avi Arad told Sony studio chief Amy Pascal in an email dated Oct. 23, 2014, with the subject line "Mario." Arad then forwarded Pascal separate images of him with Mario Bros.creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, the latter of which included the message, "Happy ceo, lets get together, it's the mother load."

Yeah, so... apparently, Sony Pictures owns the right to a new Super Mario Brothers movie.

According to the information gathered from the emails, the movie is still at the earliest stages of production—more of a concept, really, with no actors, scripts, or anything remotely resembling a coherent plot. Just about all we know about it, so far, is that it’s animated, aimed for families, and that Sony nor Nintendo seemed to mind that they were rivals in the gaming sphere.

Granted, this doesn’t mean anything, when it comes down to it. For every movie that gets made there are dozens if not more movies that never get past the conceptualization stage—it’s very likely we won’t see a Mario movie anytime in the near future. But what it does mean is that unless Sony sells the rights, the next Mario movie we DO see will be made by them, which… well… could be worse?

Frankly, I don’t even know what to make of this. Broadly speaking I don’t see the Mario franchise as being exactly ‘film-able’, by and large… but then, if you were to make a film that followed the plot of one of the RPG’s...? That might work…

Well, it won’t happen anytime soon, so we have all the time in the world to speculate.