Universal’s Illumination Entertainment, makers of the Despicable Me franchise, is nearing an agreement with Nintendo to make a Super Mario Bros. animated feature, the Wall Street Journal, reported today.
The last time Mario, Luigi, and Princess Daisy appeared on the bigscreen was the 1993 live-action bomb Super Mario Bros. released by Walt Disney Studios-Hollywood Pictures. Nintendo has been hesitant ever since to return the Italian plumbers back to cinemas, but a team-up with Illumination, the most consistently successful animation studio at the box office in recent years, seems like a sound bet.
Illumination and Nintendo have been ironing out details of the film deal for over a year. Anonymous sources told WSJ that the discussions have been challenging due to Nintendo’s concerns over creative input: