Gallery: Super Mario Bros. Movie Artists Share Concept Art

This is all marvelous. Two new names to follow and analyze

They replaced Nintendo ninjas with C.I.A Toads!
Love the Mario and Luigi's pizzeria reference.

It would be nice to have a book with all of this inside.

Wow. If 2D big feature films hadn't died out (sadly), that first price of concept art would've looked beautiful for a film.

Just that picture alone is more visually interesting than the entire film.

Very cool.

I'd love a full The Art of The Super Mario Bros. Movie book.

Very nice.
Is there an art book coming out for the movie?
Hope they do a sequel

Lorax Toad is pure fever dream material

I love all the different toads🍄🍄🍄

Getting an artist to draw a bunch of different Toad body type concepts only to throw them all in the bin and copypaste the same design from the past 20+ years is peak Miyamoto project management.

@Kotorcom i agree it was a waste of the artists' time but nintendo needed to visualise how they would look and after seeing the various designs, decided to stay with the old design.

I didn't know I wanted Toad Gru this badly.

@Vexx234 I wouldn't say 2D animation has died out completely. There are still some films out there that utilize 2D animation, but those are mainly coming from smaller or independent studios. The big studios are the ones who have moved away from 2D animation and embraced 3D animation.

Heck, just a few years ago, there was an Irish-made 2D-animated film called Wolfwalkers, which released on Apple TV+ to critical acclaim. And if you consider it to be 2D animation, some VTubers use 2D models, with some of them using a program called Live2D.

So 2D animation is still out there. You just have to know where to look.

@AstroTheGamosian Hah, I know it's not completely dead. I was being hyperbolic to emphasize it's slow transition from the big screen, to the smaller screen.

@Vexx234 Ah, I see. Of course, even then, 3D animation from the larger studios is also starting to make its way to the small screen now. Quite a few Disney properties are doing that. I don't get what the appeal of 3D animation is over 2D animation with these larger studios, but it would be nice to see them return to 2D animation.

@AstroTheGamosian Beats me. I think Pixar is what kick started it all. Since then it's just become the norm. Maybe that's giving them too much credit, but it can't be denied they had one of the biggest impacts on animation.

I still dont understand why Toadsworth wasn't in the film, theres even a Toad who has "adviser voice".

Always enjoy seeing some lovely concept arts. Would love a SMB movie artbook featuring this and other behind-the-scenes stuff.

@Quiet2down Not just Pixar, but also Dreamworks. Their first film, Antz, was 3D-animated, releasing in 1998. They have done some 2D-animated movies, most notably The Prince of Egypt and The Road to El Dorado, but those were only in the early days of the studio, and only five such movies were made; the other three being Joseph: King of Dreams (which served as a prequel to The Prince of Egypt), Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Everything else was 3D-animated, though.

Really hope there's an artbook down the line, maybe in a Limited Edition release of the movie.

The toads were awesome, hope we get them in the sequel!

Why did they hire artists? Why didn't they just use AI? Who would want to view art created by another living person who puts meticulous time and effort and creativity into it when you can have a computer spew out art in an instant?

Aww, there's even a cat toad! I don't mean Toad in a Cat Suit.
"Toad With Pearl Earring" is something I never knew I needed.