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Shigeru Miyamoto says the Virtual Console helped change his mind on creating a new Mario movie
The first Super Mario Bros. movie was...well...let's just say it wasn't exactly what fans or Nintendo had in mind. The movie may have gotten a cult following over the years, but it's not exactly a shining beacon of quality. It was their experience with that movie that pushed Nintendo far away from films for years and years.
Nintendo is only just how dipping their toes into the Hollywood waters with a new animated Mario film, which they're working on with Illumination. What caused Nintendo to come around on film making once again? According to Shigeru Miyamoto, it was working on the Virtual Console that helping him change his mind. Check out his comments on the matter below.
...regarding IP development into movies, I was originally against Nintendo expanding into video-making, but am currently involved personally in using our company’s IP in film production; and the background behind this change is because Nintendo has re-released many games via Virtual Console.
Our assets are our software, and even 30 years on, they are still active. However, unfortunately, when the original hardware compatible with the software is gone, we have no choice but to port it onto new hardware. After experiencing this process of bringing older software onto new hardware many times, I began to consider that our content business would be able to develop even further if we were able to combine our long-beloved software with that of video assets, and utilize them together for extended periods.
Basically, it’s not that ‘I want to make a Mario movie’, but that I began to consider that ‘we should bring more Nintendo content into the field of video-making’. With films, the amount of people who would contact our IP would widen, and increase the amount of people engaging with our IP. Then, we’d be able to further increase the spread of our media via video.”