The Super Mario Bros Movie (Movie)

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    Hollywood Figured Out How to Adapt Video Games. I Wish It Hadn’t.

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    Polished adaptations like “The Last of Us” and “Minecraft” lack the awkward charm of the genre’s early years.How do you turn a video game about zombies into a television show? If you’re making “The Last of Us,” HBO’s Emmy-winning post-apocalypse drama, you take a sober approach, treating the zombie-killing action as an opportunity to articulate profound things about the human condition. You remind viewers that what matters is not the spectacle of the end of the world, but the resilience of the survivors as they cling to their tattered humanity. And so, like the PlayStation game on which it is based, “The Last of Us” becomes a grim show with big themes: the power of hope, the futility of vengeance, the terrible things we’ll do to survive.But if you were making “House of the Dead,” based on the 1990s arcade game, you went in guns blazing. This 2003 film, from the notoriously disreputable German director Uwe Boll, contained practically no coherent ideas, and its primary motivation seemed to be to cram as many bare breasts, exploding corpses and nu-metal songs into one movie as the Motion Picture Association of America would allow. The game it was based on was not exactly a paragon of artistic merit to begin with. But even by the crude standards of the source material, Boll’s film, with its constant slo-mo and goofy “Matrix”-style camera movements, felt especially tasteless.Everything I know about movies and television tells me that “The Last of Us” is the superior adaptation — subtle instead of broad, mature instead of childish, concerned with real feelings instead of lizard-brain titillation. And yet every time I watch it, some recess of my soul yearns for the lurid, tooled-up lunacy of stuff like “House of the Dead.” “The Last of Us” is a duly touching story of trauma and grief, but it feels as if everything lately is a duly touching story of trauma and grief. When was the last time you put on a movie and saw slow-motion shots of a woman in a Star-Spangled Banner leotard dodging a sledgehammer-wielding zombie?It’s not the trashiness itself that I’m nostalgic for. What made “House of the Dead” charming was its idiosyncrasies, and idiosyncrasy is precisely what the current generation of video-game adaptations has managed to iron out. Hollywood has learned how to produce successful, respectable game adaptations by slotting them into proven formulas, like comic-book blockbusters and prestige TV. You know what to expect: either a serious-minded, no-nonsense drama, as with “The Last of Us” or “The Witcher,” or an irreverent, wisecracking comedy full of inside jokes and fan service, as with “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” “Sonic the Hedgehog” or “A Minecraft Movie.” Adaptation is a solved problem.The earlier Mario was played by Bob Hoskins; the new one is voiced by Chris Pratt.But before Hollywood solved it, the industry simply let artists — and, yes, sometimes hacks — attack the problem with creative abandon. The results were as delightfully singular as they were critically reviled. You could walk into Andrzej Bartowiak’s “Doom” movie with no idea that you were about to encounter a five-minute point-of-view action sequence shot in one unbroken take. You could also read a one-star review of it by Roger Ebert, who hated it so much that he ended up provoking a debate over whether video games could ever be art. These movies had a lowly reputation, but I look back on them with gratitude and affection. For all their faults, they were alive with creative possibility — with the freedom to be bad on fresh terms.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In 2023, Movie Audiences Wanted Comfort, Not Superhero Spectacle

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      Movie audiences flocked to Taylor Swift, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” but were cooler toward returning superheroes like the Flash, Captain Marvel and Aquaman.Hollywood’s movie factories run on conventional wisdom — entrenched notions, based on experience, about what types of films are likely to pop at the global box office.This year, audiences turned many of those so-called rules on their heads.Superheroes have long been seen as the most reliable way to fill seats. But characters like Captain Marvel, the Flash, Ant-Man, Shazam and Blue Beetle failed to excite moviegoers. Over the weekend, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” which cost more than $200 million to make and tens of millions more to market, arrived to a disastrous $28 million in ticket sales in the United States and Canada. Overseas moviegoers chipped in another $80 million.In the meantime, the biggest movie of the year at the box office, “Barbie,” with $1.44 billion in worldwide ticket sales, was directed by a woman, based on a very female toy and spray-painted pink — ingredients that most studios have long seen as limiting audience appeal. An old movie-industry maxim holds that women will go to a “guy” movie but not vice versa.“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” collected $1.36 billion, a second-place result that also stunned Hollywood; studios have a troubled history with game adaptations. “Oppenheimer,” a three-hour period drama about a physicist, rounded out the top three, taking in $952 million and contradicting the prevailing belief that, in the streaming era, films for grown-ups are not viable in theaters.“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” stunned the film industry by bringing in $1.36 billion.Nintendo/Nintendo/Universal Studios, via Associated Press“Without question, change is afoot — audiences are in a different mood,” said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers. “The country and the world are not in the same place. We’ve had seven years of divisive politics, a severe pandemic, two serious wars, climate change and inflation. Moviegoers seem less interested in being overwhelmed with spectacle and saving the universe than being spoken to, entertained and inspired.”The biggest box office surprises of the year fell into the “spoken to” category. “Sound of Freedom,” a crime drama that cost $15 million to make, catered to the far right, an audience largely ignored by Hollywood, and generated $248 million in ticket sales, on a par with “The Eras Tour,” which targeted Taylor Swift fans and also cost about $15 million.“Sound of Freedom” came from Angel Studios, an independent company in Provo, Utah, that supported the film with an unorthodox “Pay It Forward” program, which let supporters buy tickets online for those who otherwise might not see it. In a big break from Hollywood norms, Ms. Swift cut out the middle company (a studio) and made a distribution deal directly with AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest theater operator.“Our phone has been dancing off the hooks since the day we announced the ‘Eras Tour’ project,” Adam Aron, AMC’s chief executive, told investors on a conference call in November, referring to “alternative content” opportunities.Comscore, which compiles box office data, projected on Sunday that North American ticket sales for the year would reach about $9 billion, a 20 percent increase from 2022. (Before the pandemic, North American theaters reliably sold about $11 billion in tickets annually.) The average price for an adult general admission ticket in the United States was $12.14, up from $11.75, according to EntTelligence, a research firm.Worldwide ticket sales are expected to exceed $33 billion, an increase of 27 percent, partly because of a surge in Latin America. (Before the pandemic, worldwide ticket sales easily exceeded $40 billion annually.)Hollywood’s climb back from the pandemic is expected to stall in 2024. With fewer movies scheduled for release — studio pipelines were disrupted by the recent strikes — ticket sales will decline 5 to 11 percent next year, depending on the market, according to projections from Gower Street Analytics, a box office research firm.Reading box-office tea leaves is like pontificating about symbolism in works of fiction: Any halfway plausible theory works. But studio bosses need something, anything, to guide them as they make billion-dollar judgment calls for the seasons ahead.Here are five takeaways from this year:Moviegoers want comfort.People reach for nostalgia in times of stress, and movies that reminded audiences of the past — while also managing to feel fresh — have been succeeding. “Barbie,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Wonka” and the retro-feeling “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” allowed people to revisit their childhoods. “Insidious: The Red Door” hit pay dirt by bringing back the franchise’s original stars.“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” could have tapped into nostalgia to become a hit. Instead, a huffing and puffing Harrison Ford, 81, simply reminded Indy fans that they, too, are getting old. “Dial of Destiny” cost Disney $295 million to make and took in a flaccid $384 million. (Theaters keep roughly 50 percent of ticket sales.)Tessa Thompson and Michael B. Jordan in “Creed III.”Eli Ade/MGMArt film has a pulse.Sophisticated dramas with modest budgets and aimed at older audiences have been showing signs of life after two years in the box office I.C.U.The streaming era has forever shifted the bulk of prestige film viewing to the home, analysts say. But theaters found a modicum of success in 2023 with offerings like “Past Lives,” a wistful drama with some Korean dialogue, and Hayao Miyazaki’s animated “The Boy and the Heron.” The bespoke “Asteroid City” managed $54 million.Early box office results have also been promising for Oscar-oriented films like “Poor Things,” a surreal science-fiction romance, and “American Fiction,” a satire about a writer who puts together a fake memoir that turns on racial stereotypes.Bigger is not better.For the past decade, Hollywood has kept audiences interested in sequels by making each installment more bloated and often nonsensical than the last. Bigger! Faster! More!That strategy may need rethinking — it’s just too expensive, analysts say, especially with Chinese moviegoers souring on American blockbusters. “Fast X,” the 10th movie in the “Fast and Furious” series, cost an estimated $340 million and took in $705 million worldwide, including $140 million in China. By comparison, “Furious 7” in 2015 cost $190 million and collected $1.5 billion, including $391 million in China.Tom Cruise in “Top Gun: Maverick.”Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesTom Cruise’s seventh “Mission: Impossible” spectacle, released in July in the wake of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” cost roughly $290 million to make and collected $568 million, including $49 million in China. The sixth “Mission: Impossible” in 2018 cost $178 million and generated $792 million, with Chinese ticket buyers chipping in $181 million.Increasingly, franchise sequels and spinoffs need to feel fresh to succeed. Lionsgate, for instance, delved deeper into the High Table underground crime organization in “John Wick: Chapter 4” and introduced “Hunger Games” fans to a new story line (and cast) in the prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Both movies were hits. Lionsgate even revived its “Saw” horror franchise by shifting the narrative back in time.“Each of those movies did something different than the prior,” said Adam Fogelson, vice chair of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group. “It wasn’t just ‘spend more, make it bigger, make it louder and cram in more action.’”Some audience patterns remain intact.Horror continued to be a reliable performer, with “Five Nights at Freddy’s” and “M3gan” starting new franchises for Universal and its Blumhouse affiliate. Together, the two films cost $32 million. They collected a combined $469 million. Also notable was “The Nun II,” which cost Warner Bros. about $22 million and took in $366 million.Superheroes may be down, but they’re not out. Marvel’s rollicking, well-established “Guardians of the Galaxy” series returned for a third chapter and generated $846 million against a $250 million budget. Sony’s bold, anime-influenced “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” cost an estimated $150 million and collected $691 million.Stars matter.The conventional wisdom in Hollywood has been that movie stars are essentially part of the past. A celebrity name above the title no longer carries that much weight with ticket buyers. The underlying “intellectual property” is what fills seats.People pay to see Barbie, not Margot Robbie.Except that Mattel and various studios tried for at least 20 years to turn the toy into a live-action movie star. It took Ms. Robbie in the role (and Ryan Gosling as Ken) to finally make it happen. Other movies that benefited from star power in 2023 included “Wonka,” with Timothée Chalamet, and “Creed III,” anchored by Michael B. Jordan.Stars don’t have heft? Try telling that to the producers of “Gran Turismo,” “Haunted Mansion,” “Dumb Money” and “Strays,” all of which disappointed at the box office and arrived when their casts were barred from promoting their work because of the SAG-AFTRA strike. More

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      In 1993 ‘Super Mario Bros.’ Bombed; in 2023, It’s a Hit With a New Generation

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      A critical and commercial disaster in its day, the video-game adaptation was trashed even by its star, Bob Hoskins. But a reappraisal is underway.The new animated film “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” recreates the sunny spirit, effervescent action and confectionary aesthetic of the namesake video games, with the voices of Chris Pratt as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, and Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach. Expect periwinkle skies, green warp pipes and squeaky-voiced, mushroom-headed characters.The mustachioed Nintendo mascot has been on the big screen before — even though some of the people involved would prefer to forget about it.Way back in 1993, the popularity of Super Mario led to Hollywood’s first big-budget video game adaptation. The live-action “Super Mario Bros.” starred Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi, two down-on-their-luck plumber brothers picking up odd jobs in Brooklyn. Largely shot in an abandoned cement factory in North Carolina, the movie was mostly set not in the hyper-colored Mushroom Kingdom, but in a grody, dystopian alternate version of New York called Dinohattan, ruled over by the maniacal dictator King Koopa (Dennis Hopper). Sticky, elastic fungus plays a key role in the plot. It looked and felt nothing like the video games.To Rocky Morton, who directed the movie with Annabel Jankel, that was the point. Morton and Jankel were British music video filmmakers who also had been behind the creation of the pseudo-computer-generated TV show host Max Headroom. Morton and Jankel’s agent had sent them a Mario Bros. movie script by the “Rain Man” co-writer Barry Morrow. Dismissing that screenplay as too cute, Morton pitched another idea: a darker, grittier Mario Bros. origin story.“It felt like such a great opportunity,” Morton said in a recent phone interview, of turning the video game phenomenon into a movie. “It seemed like the obvious thing to do. And it would have a built-in audience. It was made in heaven.”The result was a critical and commercial disaster. Roger Ebert declared it “a complete waste of time and money.” (Though Gene Siskel allowed, “I like the Goombas,” referring to Koopa’s oversized henchmen.) Several of the actors spoke disparagingly about the production, with Hoskins calling the shoot a “nightmare.” It was game over for any sequel, and for the Hollywood careers of its directors too.In more recent years, millennial Nintendophiles who were put off by the movie in 1993 — or, like me, simply avoided it — have given it another chance.Today, “Super Mario Bros.” has been the subject of something of a reappraisal, achieving a surprising cult status in the process. Its listing on the cinephile movie rating site Letterboxd is accompanied by a host of passionate, discerning reviews. “Super Mario Bros.” is “film-literate, daring, political, and unapologetically insane,” wrote the user Zeke Knott. While awaiting the coming fan-made documentary, “Trust the Fungus: Bob-Omb to Cult Classic,” fans can listen to a podcast dedicated to a minute-by-minute dissection of the movie, or visit the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, Texas, which is holding an exhibition on it. This month, Nitehawk Cinemas in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, will screen “Super Mario Bros.” as part of Re-Consider This!, a series showcasing misunderstood masterpieces.The excessive artistic license taken with the adaptation is part of the fun of it, said Desmond Thorne, a film programmer at Nitehawk. “In an age when we’re inundated with video game and comic book adaptations that take a more literal approach, it’s refreshing to look back at ‘Super Mario Bros.’ 30 years later,” he said. “You have to admire the huge swings that it took.” For “huge swings,” see, for example, the scene in which Dennis Hopper takes a mud bath with Fiona Shaw.But even the most ardent fans will admit that “Super Mario Bros.” is kind of a mess. Morton said the problems began after Disney purchased the distribution rights, demanding an extensive rewrite of the screenplay — less effects-heavy, more family-friendly — that arrived 10 days before principal photography began. (Disney was unable to locate anyone involved in the production for comment.)But it’s a fantastic and inspired mess with densely artificial sets concocted by the “Blade Runner” production designer David L. Snyder; cartoonish costumes by Joseph Porro (who most recently worked on “The Mandalorian”); and a lunatic score by the composer Alan Silvestri. Elsewhere, Patrick Tatopoulos’s creature designs anticipate his work on “Independence Day.”“The film is such a kitchen sink in terms of inspiration and execution,” the superfan Ryan Hoss said. “Practical sets, makeup, costumes, pyrotechnics, prosthetics, animatronics and puppets. It has tone issues, and too many cooks in the kitchen, but you can point to any part of the story of ‘Super Mario Bros.’ and it’s fascinating to someone on some level.”In 2007, when Hoss was in college, he created the website Super Mario Bros. The Movie Archive. “I felt that the conversation around the film just wasn’t what it deserved,” he said. The site was “a place to get as much of the background and history of the film out in the open.”Since then, Hoss, along with the site’s editor in chief, Steven Applebaum, has tracked down alternate versions of the script, set photos, and props, and published numerous interviews with crew members. Most recently, they uncovered and restored an early work print of the film, creating an extended edition available to watch online.They’ve also held screenings and other events for like-minded fans. “It’s one of the most enthusiastic and positive fandoms I’ve ever seen,” Hoss said.He added, “The biggest surprise has been getting to know so many of the talented cast and crew that worked on the film. They’ve all said that ‘Super Mario Bros.’ was one of the most memorable films of their career.”Leguizamo has said he’s proud to have been involved in the film. “I’m O.G.,” he told IndieWire recently, also praising Jankel and Morton for their commitment to diverse casting. They “fought really hard for me to be the lead because I was a Latin man,” he said. “It was such a breakthrough.”Today, Morton looks back at the whole experience as one of utter humiliation. “It was horrible, just a really horrible experience.” (Jankel did not respond to an interview request and apparently has not participated in any stories about the making of the movie. “It really did affect her,” said Morton.)The re-evaluation of “Super Mario Bros.” is “heartening,” said Morton. And yet, the fact that the once-reviled movie is being celebrated and enjoyed — without irony — doesn’t seem to have sunk in for its director. The day after our interview, he agreed to attend a Hollywood screening of the movie, his first time seeing it in about 20 years. “They wanted me to introduce it but I can’t think of anything positive to say.”As for the new film, if all goes well, it might signal the launch of yet another movie franchise, the Nintendo Cinematic Universe. Which, Morton admitted, is probably what audiences expected 30 years ago. “That’s the film that everybody wanted,” he said. “And they’ve got it now.” More