Mario Movie Star Chris Pratt Says Sequel News Should Be Coming "Soon"

What a biggiferous fanciful announcement, a secondary mario movie!

I shall use undictionaryable words if I scallywimple dang fancy it.

I don't think they had writers for the Mario movie, so they should be fine.

I thought the whole movie was written by a in-house Nintendo AI bot named "ChatSMB".

I think there’s a bit of misconception about the heart and soul of the Super Mario Bros franchise, it’s never been about the story. No one is/has been heralding or replaying any Mario game for the story. It’s always been about the gameplay and the spectacle of the Mushroom Kingdom. Not sure why ppl were expecting this deep story with fully fleshed out characters with deep back stories. Story has never been the primary focus of any Mario game.

To be honest I don’t think a “story” was the reason why everyone liked the first one anyway, that aside, a new Mario movie! I hope it has something to do with galaxy! Has seeing the music score and visuals on the big screen would be amazing!

Edit: (btw when I say I don’t think a story is why people liked it, I do not mean to insinuate that this movie doesn’t or was terribly written, just referring to the simple plot, that’s all, just like now mainline games do, the writers were fantastic in this film.)

@FishyS
I have my doubts for a Zelda movie, but they should be able to make it good. Have a few “ Well Excuse me Princess” and “ I’m so hungry I could eat an octorock”. Then it would be nearly perfect.

@Rainz Movies are not games. Mario games can get away with thin storytelling because the gameplay itself is part of the narrative, but you can't directly translate that to something that's meant to be seen and not played, at least not without the underlying flaws becoming a lot more noticeable. Unless you were to somehow create a "choose your own adventure" (which sure as heck ain't happening for a movie meant to be seen by hundreds of people in a theater at once), the storytelling has to compensate. The Mario movie got the reviews it got because it kinda dropped the ball on that front.

@Rainz No one was expecting that, that’s why most of us don’t care about a sequel

I can't imagine why people would want a movie to have a story.

Of course I would be interested in a second Mario Movie. It would be cool if it was like Yoshi's Island. They should make a scene where the Yoshi's are singing the Happy Song. It sounds a little bit like they are singing Nintendo. Or make it like Paper Mario. The writing is quite good, it could work for a movie.

A Zelda movie would be nice too. Personnely I would like a direction like Link's Awakening or Wind Waker. And I think a Pikmin movie would be a perfect fit.

Being a writer isn't just about being able to tell a compelling story. It's also making characters faithful to their source material. Writing jokes that actually land. Knowing how to pace the film. Foreshadowing. Making callbacks to things that happened earlier in the movie. Giving actors instructions for how to perform their lines. Making sure the characters have chemistry. There's writing that goes into the stage directions (fades to black), the setting, which characters are and aren't going to be in the film, music cues...

I'm an English major, so maybe I'm a bit biased, but the way I see it, the script is the backbone of every cinematic performance. Without it, the whole thing falls apart. So I don't like how dismissive everyone is being toward the writers of the Mario Movie because it had a simple plot. If you think they could have hired just anyone to write the script for a good movie adaptation of a video game, why has it taken us this long to get here?

You know who you have to thank for not getting a Mario movie full of fart jokes and dabbing? The writers.

I know that Yoshi will be in that sequel. I think that the Koopalings will also be in that movie. Wario & Waluigi might be in that movie as well.

How does NL put quotation marks in the title for a word that doesn't appear in the blocked quotation? Did he actually use the word 'soon' somewhere? If that's a deduction, summary, or interpretation, lose the quotation marks. This is thankfully not a clickbait web site, but I'd hate that to change.

Writer's strike? I mean, Bowser kidnaps Peach and Mario and friends have to rescue her. There. Job done. Pay me.

(/s ofc)

Maybe a Zelda movie should have as much dialogue from Link as we get from John Wick…

“Are you pissed off, Link?”

“Yeaaaaaaaaa”

@Rainz Exactly. Shigeru Miyamato even said he thought Galaxy had too much story!

Get Chris Pratt to voice Link while you are at it.

In other news the sky is blue and poop is brown or sometimes green. Film at 11! Considering that movie made like what a bazillion cajillion dollars did anyone seriously think there wouldn't be a sequel?

God help us all when the Zelda movie gets made and it will. Link will have to speak and oh the fans will be sure to riot!

I am not looking forward to a Legend of Zelda movie. Link talking? Why????

Hm it feels like it’s not exactly his job to announce the next Nintendo movie. Nintendo might wanna do that when they’re ready.

All you guys think you're funny saying the Mario movie had no writers just because the plot was simple. Last time I checked, this movie has a beginning, a climax and a conclusion with dialogue all throughout it. That stuff doesn't just magically bring itself into existence during the animation process. You need a team of writers for that.

Also, just to respond to what @Rainz said, technically the old Mario RPGs had pretty strong stories, at least in comparison to the Mario platformers. That's one of the reasons why they're so beloved and still talked about to this day. Unfortunately, Nintendo seems determined to bury those old games and pretend like they never existed. They're seemingly afraid of Mario games being too creative and having too much depth, and this mindset may also have wormed its way into the movie, despite how enjoyable it was.

Still, a sequel can always improve upon the flaws of the previous film, hence why I'm so excited about this news!

@Not_Soos THANK YOU! I'm kinda done with all the "are movies not written by AI anyways?" "jokes" and the dismiss of simple plots by saying that they actually don't need writers. All of these mentalities are the ones that made this strike happen in the first place.
Writers are a very important part of media. They should be treated as such.

@Rainz Sure but the movie isn't a game. Story is a big part of movies. It's like making a Mario chocolate bar that tastes like cement and saying "well the Mario games have never been about chocolatey flavour".

Bring on Yoshi, Wario and Captain Toad!!! 😀Yoshi is my favorite Mario character and deserves a chance to shine in the movies especially after the awful version we got in the live action movie that looked nothing like Yoshi.

@Dev9417 I don't know how big Illumination is but I don't know if they are big enough to make their internal movies (new IPs, Gru, Sing, etc) plus a sequel to the Mario movie and a new Zelda movie.
Maybe they would have to choose to renounce to some of those projects and I doubt they will have two Nintendo IP movies at the same time.
But hey, Myamoto already described Nintendo as a "talent agent" and Universal owns other studios aside from Illumination. There are also other studios to choose outside of Universal and even outside the US. If Nintendo wants a sequel to the Mario movie and a Zelda movie at the same time, they'd have to consider that.

I like the fact people care more about Mario than Guardians of the Galaxy or other corporate Disney projects.

@NintendoWife,

He has not announced the next Mario Bros movie, I mean at this point with the first movie grossing over a billion dollars, it's pretty much a given there will be a sequel, he has simply stated it will be sooner than later, and simply stated the obvious.

Still leaves Nintendo or Illumination plenty of time to give actual specifics, why you seem bothered about him commenting on this, remains a mystery however.

Sooo like, Super Mario Bros. 2?

@blindsquarel Lol

@jowe_gv I'm done with hearing about AI in general, honestly. I hope it will just be a fad like NFT's that will be dead in a year. Obviously, artificial intelligence has been around for a long time and will continue to exist in things like CPU characters in games or paging Siri on your smartphone. But broader application into art is where I don't see it having any real staying power, and if it does, we're all screwed. It would no longer be just blue collar workers having to worry about robots taking their jobs, and creativity would suffer as a result.

@johnvboy I’m not “bothered” I just thought his reply was odd (do read it again). He makes it sound like he’d totally be the right person to ask, but is merely holding off out of respect for the writers strike. It’s a bit pretentious. In his position the correct answer would be “That’s for others to say”.

As for “D’oh he simply stated the obvious”, that’s not how it works. If, say, the drummer of Dua Lipa spills the news on the next album, you can say “D’oh of course she was gonna make another album”, still the label etc. will be very annoyed.

@cookiex
Of course movies are not video games. Can’t lose sight that’s it’s a video game being adapted into a movie. All of the source material is based off a video game that never relied on its story. There was never going to be some deep psycho analysis of the characters, it’s already a well established franchise, we already know who Mario is. The poor reviews are from those critics who don’t understand what Mario games are all about. Expecting a grandiose plot and storyline for a Mario movie/game is the wrong way to approach this franchise. The movies success reflects the same success of the video games as in the story is never the star.

@Matroska
Most movies are adapted from their books. Not every movie has to have a heavy focus on storytelling and character development. This is a Nintendo movie, and the Mario universe has never had to explain itself , not to mention Miyamoto has stated repeatedly over his career that story is not his focus as a creator. So why would we expect the opposite? Besides, ppl are overacting as if there was absolutely no beginning, middle and end to this movie.

@BabyYoda71

Speak for yourself! 😂 I enjoyed the movie, it was a visual spectacle as it was intended to be. It’s grossed well over $1 Billion, now sits with some of the greatest animated films of all time. There’s a ton of ppl who are looking forward to a sequel

@NintendoWife,

I think you are far more interested in this, than you would like to admit, still not sure why Pratt can't comment on this however, he is the voice of Mario, after all.

@johnvboy What’s there to not admit? Or to be interested in? I’ve said what I think. Big projects have tightly controlled marketing plans. Think about it, there’s so many reasons why Nintendo might not want a voice actor to prematurely announce anything. They might wanna keep the focus on the first one, on the impending streaming release, work on a totally different announcement they don’t wanna steal the press from, and so on and so on.

@NintendoWife,

I think the quote from him is more light hearted than anything else, we all know a sequel is coming at some point, and I am glad he is invested in it... At this point more success at the box office is pretty much a given.

If Nintendo or illumination have any issue with Pratt on this, I am sure they will tell him.

@Rainz I enjoyed the first one too, for having a lot of Easter eggs and references to the games. I just don’t think they can pull it off again with another Bowser-kidnaps-Peach story and have it perform as well as the first one. Other people can want that, and I get it! It just won’t make them as much money unless they add a new villain or something. That’s why I said “most of us”.

@Cashews Interesting that Guardians of the Galaxy was the first thing you thought of when you think corporate Disney projects, considering it’s possibly the only thing that doesn’t fit that label

@BabyYoda71 you don't see a reason I used Guardians? You don't see the relation between Chris Pratt taking to social to talk about Mario and not Guardians as my reason for mentioning Guardians foremost?

@Cashews Oooh I completely missed that lol, sorry.

@Purgatorium Are you talking only about Super Mario movie or about all movies in general?

@Not_Soos I'm a recent Computer Science graduate and even I'm done with a lot of the tecnobuls*** recently.
This whole jumping head first to new technologies (or stuff that sounds like new technologies) without even knowing it's purpose or consequences is just annoying and the smug reaction some people have online in support of them is just cringe in the most purest form. Seriously, go back to NFT ads, those will be remembered just like those old pyramid scheme tapes.

I'd argue it's not as bad with AI as it was with crypto and SPECIALLY NFTs because AI at least has actual uses.
It still baffles me how many people were duped by NFTs and cryptos despite the messaging being like it was. To this day, not even the biggest NFT defenders can explain to me an actual use NFT has aside from making THEM money. But in a lot of the techno world, it seems you just have to use big words and claim your product is the next iPhone to get everyone, from investors to idiots online. to simp for your product. And it goes way back to the 2000s .NET bubble.

Going back to AI, I personally think that the whole thing sounds quite interesting actually, not going to lie. But seeing techno bros selling it as a way to replace actual workers, seeing the smug reaction online from certain groups saying that certain people should be replaced by AI and the flagrant illegalities with the whole process (from stolen art to breaking data protection laws) just makes me hate the whole thing.

And the way they've been going after creative works is honesltly the worse of it all.
Art is a very important part of the "human experience" and I personally have a ton of respect for artists, specially because their line of was has always been undervalued. But between AI art stealing artists work, public platforms online for art and writing being swarmed by bad AI art and AI stories and then all of those people claiming their jobs have become "obsolete" makes me sick. Specially since basic coding has even more numbers of being "replaced" by AI.
Between the NFT art and AI, it has shown to me that a big part of the techno world in general seem to genuinely despise artists and seeing their input as something to be replaced by "technological innovation".

@Cashews as if the Mario movie isn't a corporate product? I've got some news for you

Hopefully they'll get a better writer in the next movie.

@Bret I was insinuating that Disney was more of a machine like corporate behemoth. Nintendo likely hopes to be that one day - but they aren't yet. If Mario had failed that would have been the end of it. Disney fails they have 10 in their back pocket ready to go.

@rushiosan I can think of One and Half Billion reasons they will keep it just about the same.

@Not_Soos I know this comment is a few days old, but I agree with you! When I said what I said I meant in a way where the story per say isn’t important, but in no way (if it came out that way) did I mean to say that it didn’t need good writers, without them, well the whole movie just wouldn’t have worked, the jokes, the characters, the scripted, the personalities! all of that is what writers do, brought to life by a voice actor or actor, so it’s a shame that this strike is still going on because they refuse to give them more pay, as writing is such an important job.

Sorry I just had to say it.

@Vyacheslav333 I meant all movies, but I should add I was being sarcastic.

@jowe_gv

I think NFT's, and perhaps now also AI art, are only kept alive by rich elites bolstering it as "fine art," despite them having never known the meaning of art in the first place. Think about it. There are people out there willing to pay millions for an off-white square painted onto a white canvas. (This is a real piece that was sold.) Rich people can keep their abstract minimalist garbage, and they can keep their NFT's, too. As you said, art is about the lived human experience. But these people don't care about that; they just care about the prestige of owning something rare and valuable--regardless of how tacky it actually is.

I'm going on such a tangent here, but I would love to see some kind of neo-Renaissance movement where artists start focusing on realism again with intricately detailed sculptures, architecture, and paintings evocative of Greco-Roman traditions and other cultures around the world. Not Banksy and Basquiat like I learned about in school--I can't stand those kind of contemporary artworks.

Same with modern works of fiction. Everything is so dumbed-down with none of the literary mastery displayed by many of the old-world poets and scribes and orators. People love to act like ours is the most enlightened generation, and that everyone who came before us was so backwards and ignorant, but they have it all so backwards. AI art may just be the thing to kill my last remaining brain cell. I know art is subjective, but I hate most all trends that have been adopted since the 20th century.

...I really went off the rails there. I need to go to bed.

@Snatcher No worries! I don't think your comment was even one of the ones I was referring to. You're almost always bringing positive vibes, so I knew your intent was good. Keep being awesome!

@Not_Soos Aw, that’s too nice for me. There was always the chance you weren’t referring to me, but reading back on my comment, well I can see how it can come off that way, so I commented jus to be sure.

And you keep being a great and insightful!

@Cashews Every media company wishes it could be Disney. Every single one. Can't blame them either.
Now, we can discuss if it is a good thing to have a system that allows for companies like that to be a thing and have so many media franchises in one umbrella (a lot of them through aquisitions) but this isn't the place for that.

Nintendo has the potential of being a big media company even more than a videogame company honestly. Pokemon (which is under Nintendo umbrella, let's be real) and Mario alone are huge and have multiple avenues for stuff like merchandising and movies and toys, etc. Neither Sony or Microsoft have that. It's what makes Nintendo unique in the market, despite having less market value than Sony and Microsoft.

I don't know if they could be Disney (not even other big multibillion media companies can be that) but still.... We'll see how far they even want to go with this. Will they still only be a "talent agent" or will they will try making media on their own? Will they start with mergers and adquisitions?

...I guess if we are forced to be subjected to corporative capitalism the least we can do is make it interesting.

@Not_Soos I That whole NFT boom was just so... odd. Like, sure, it is easy to find easy answers like... the fact that the NFTs boom happened right after a big law passing in both US and EU+UK to fight against money laundering using art pieces or how the rich people were all just buying their own NFTs to artificially inflate prices and create false hype. And, even though I think that is a part of the reason for that boom, I also believe there is more to it.
I've seen people much poorer than me buying NFTs. There was a whole culture behind it and I don't think all of it was artificial. I wish it was honestly... I wish I don't have to accept that there were people that went through dead end jobs for years to end up with 20k on the bank and then put all of that money into a monkey picture and I could blame all on rich people stuff.
There were people that were literally using "rented" creatures in "pay to earn" games to play that game for hours on end and then they only got like a small part of the money they made because the rest went to their "boss" and they did it willingly. I just... I can't believe that happened.

Also, I was a person that truly believed that every piece of art had a point. Even with modern art, art that people love to critize, I believed had a point. Like, that time someone literally presented a picture of a toilet to an art exhibit. It sounds like a ***** post (....heh) but to this day, people are still talking about it. And if you checked what that artist actually said when he presented that... it honeslty kinda makes sense.
Unfortunatelly, stuff like art purely designed for money laundering, NFT art and now AI art has just drained me and I just can't defend the theory that all art has a point. Which is unfotunate.
And I don't want to test if there is actually a character limit for my comments so I'll be brief here. There is genuenlly good modern media. The problem is that there is just so much of it and the one that get the attention is the one for general audiences.
Man... Today I don't have much to do at work it seems.

@Purgatorium Oh. Okay...

@Cashews Money is the one and only you need to mention.