Video game movies; they’re all the rage right now.
Some of the medium’s most successful franchises of all time – Sonic The Hedgehog and Detective Pikachu, to name just two – have recently made their long-awaited live-action debut, and the trend shows no sign of slowing down, either. Uncharted, Mortal Kombat, Monster Hunter and countless others are headed to a theatre near you over the next year or so, and it’s not just Hollywood wanting a slice of the pie, either.
Streaming platform Netflix, in particular, has invested massive wads of cash into shows such as The Witcher (granted, it was originally a book before becoming a video game) and an upcoming Resident Evil adaptation, but how much do audiences truly want to see their favourite video game characters make the jump to big screen? According to a joint survey recently conducted by The Hollywood Reporter and Morning Consult, Nintendo’s Mario is far and away the most desired video game icon to get their own film (it’s best if we just forget 1993’s Super Mario Bros. ever existed) but beyond that, interest starts to plummet.
See the graph below detailing the most sought-after video game films:
So the Big N’s mascot comes out on top, then, but even as far as the Italian plumber is concerned, just 44% of the 2,200 adults surveyed said they’d be “very” or “somewhat” interested in a Mario film, with Pac-Man coming in a distant second at 37%. It is, of course, worth noting that the poll doesn’t stipulate age ranges or whether those questioned considered themselves avid gamers, so it’s difficult to truly put a number on the overall percentage of players that’d like to see their favorite series make the move.
As for Mario, fans will likely already be well aware that an animated movie starring the overalled hero is currently in the works, with Despicable Me studio Illumination handling its creation alongside Nintendo with a tentative release date planned for 2022.