The Making of the ‘Super Mario Bros.’ Movie, From the Book ‘Console Wars’
Posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014 by Germain Lussier
The 1993 Super Mario Bros movie is infamous for many reasons. Mostly, we know it because the film is based on a hugely popular video game property, and the resulting movie is so, so bad. It’s also significant because the film was such a miserable experience for everyone involved — most of all the people at Nintendo — that we’ve since been denied films based on some of Nintendo’s other fantastic properties.
So, what exactly went wrong? I found out recently by reading the book Console Wars by Blake J. Harris. The book, which tells the story of the war between Sega and Nintendo in the 1990s, has a chapter dedicated to the film and it’s absolutely fascinating. Names like Dustin Hoffman and Tom Hanks are mentioned. Dozens of screenwriters are discussed. Terrible on-set feuds led to abysmal behavior. It’s all there.
After reading the chapter I thought you, the /Film reader, would find it just as fascinating as I did. So I contacted the publisher HarperCollins and got permission to reprint the chapter on the Super Mario Bros movie just for you. Read it below.
