Nintendo Planning More Consistent Shift into Movie Space

For decades, Nintendo has been one of the biggest and best gaming companies out there. They’re far from perfect today, but it’s hard to deny the impact the company has had on the gaming world. It is impossible to imagine where we’d be without the NES, Mario, Zelda, Pokémon, and so many other things the company introduced. That’s not going to change, as gaming will remain a key part of Nintendo’s brand, but they are going to ramp up the movie production, too.

Nintendo Making Big Shift into Film

Super Mario, Shigeru Miyamoto, nintendo — Photo Credit: Nintendo

There was one misguided and horrible attempt to turn Super Mario into a live-action movie in the 1990s, but otherwise, almost everything associated with Nintendo, save the Pokémon animated series, has been in the games world. That’s not true anymore.

In 2023, Nintendo broke into the movies space by partnering with Illumination to bring The Super Mario Bros. Movie to life. Next year, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is coming. The year after that, The Legend of Zelda live-action film is set to release. After that, there’s nothing planned, but you can be certain that more is on the way.

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said via Video Games Chronicle they are “continuing to prepare for the ongoing release of movies in the future,” which seems to imply that the three-year gap between films within the company’s IP ownership might end up being an anomaly. Obviously, the Mario movies have become a franchise, and it’s highly likely that the Zelda movies will, too.

But beyond that, there are so many other options. Pokémon: Detective Pikachu does exist, but it’s not quite under the same umbrella as the others. Regardless, they have the Kirby, Splatoon, Star Fox, Animal Crossing, Metroid, Pikmin, and Fire Emblem franchises that they could use to make movies.

Of course, there is a limit to what they can do. The company has been and aims to remain heavily involved with the production and development of these movies. “For The Super Mario Bros Movie and the upcoming The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, our own Shigeru Miyamoto has served as a co-producer alongside Mr Chris Meledandri of Illumination,” Furukawa said. “For the live-action movie of The Legend of Zelda, Shigeru Miyamoto is co-producing with Mr Avi Arad of Arad Productions Inc, and has been closely involved since the initial planning stages.”

They would need to avoid stretching themselves too thin, and having game leads work on new games for the series they’re responsible for while also working with movie studios is highly demanding. Don’t expect an MCU-like jump in yearly production, but it should be sooner than a few years in between releases.

What Nintendo Could Do With Movies

As of now, we know that Nintendo will continue making Mario movies. The first was highly successful, and there’s ample opportunity for more. The original was not based directly on a game, but the second one seems to be adapting the Super Mario Galaxy games.

With that in mind, we can expect Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario 3D World, and plenty of other games to eventually make their way onto the big screen. As for Zelda, there is no clear source material for the upcoming movie, and it is speculated to be an amalgamation of franchise elements similar to the first Mario film.

However, if they follow the same trajectory as the Mario series, there are over 20 mainline games with their own stories that could end up as adapted movies. Until we know more about the 2027 movie, we can’t say anything with full confidence, though.

And eventually, one could imagine a Super Smash Bros. movie of sorts. They have the elements for it with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, The Legend of Zelda, Detective Pikachu, and the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise (although that’s SEGA, not Nintendo-owned), but it would be extremely difficult to pull off.

Conclusion

The video game adaptation is arguably in its golden age now, as so many games are the basis of a lot of movies and TV shows. Fittingly, Nintendo should be and seems to be all over that. They own the most recognizable IPs in all of gaming, so bringing them to the big screen should be a no-brainer. Fortunately, that seems to be the plan moving forward.