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This article contains information about a subject that is unrelated to the Super Mario games and is therefore non-canon to the main storyline. |
- Not to be confused with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a computer-animated 2023 film based on the Super Mario series.
- "This Ain’t No Game."
- —Tagline
Super Mario Bros. is a 1993 adventure-family comedy based loosely on the popular video game of the same name. It was released by Hollywood Pictures, a subdivision of the Walt Disney Company. Despite its popular background, it was poorly received by the general public. Over time, it has managed to evolve into an infamous cult classic.
Plot[]
The story concerns Mario and Luigi, two Italian American brothers living in Brooklyn, New York who are being driven out of business by the mafia-like Scapelli Construction Company. Luigi falls in love with an orphaned college student, Daisy, who is digging under the Brooklyn Bridge for dinosaur bones. After a date, she takes Luigi to the dig and witnesses Scapelli's men (who, along with Scapelli himself, had previously threatened her to end her research on that specific piece of land for their own interests) sabotage it by leaving the water-pipes open. Mario and Luigi stop the flooding but are knocked out by two strange characters, Iggy and Spike.
Mario and Luigi head deeper into the caves following Daisy's screaming and discover an interdimensional portal through which Mario and Luigi follow Daisy. They find themselves in a strange dystopian parallel world where a human-like race evolved from Dinosaurs rather than the mammalian ancestry of true humans. 65 million years ago a meteorite crashed into the Earth and in doing so ripped the universe into two parallel dimensions. All the living dinosaurs of the time crossed over into this new realm before being sealed there forever. Iggy and Spike turn out to be lackeys (and cousins) of the other world's evil and feared dictator, King Koopa, descended from the T-Rex. However, the two have failed to also bring Daisy's rock, a meteorite fragment which Koopa is trying to get in order to merge his world with the real world that separated from Koopa's world during the meteor strike. It turns out that Daisy is the princess of the other dimension but when Koopa overthrew Daisy's father (and turned him into fungus), Daisy's mother took her to New York using the interdimensional portal. The portal was then destroyed, but when Scapelli was blasting at the cave, the portal was reopened. When Koopa hears about the re-opening of the portal, he sends Spike and Iggy to find Daisy and the rock in order to merge the dimensions and make Koopa dictator of both worlds. Spike and Iggy, however, who had grown more intelligent after being subjected to one of Koopa's experiments, decide to turn on Koopa and join forces with Mario and Luigi. Koopa thinks only Daisy can merge the worlds. It turns out Mario and Luigi were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lucky for Daisy, the plumbers were persistent in finding her.
The original 1993 poster
During the big finale, the worlds merge, during which Scapelli gets his comeuppance when Koopa devolves him into a primate, but Luigi takes back the rock and the worlds separate. Mario fights Koopa and eventually wins when he and Luigi devolve him, making him a Tyrannosaurus, and then primordial slime. The brothers save the two worlds from a cruel dictator with his crime against humanity and Daisy's father turns back to normal and reclaims control over the kingdom. As the brothers return home, Luigi and Daisy admit their love for one another but Daisy is not allowed to return to New York with them. Mario re-phrases Daisy's words to Luigi but he isn't buying it. Luigi passionately kisses her goodbye and the two Mario Bros. go back to New York, while Daisy, along with Toad, all watch them leave. About three weeks later, Daisy returns for Mario and Luigi's help in fighting more villains. Meanwhile, Mario and Luigi's story is televised, giving them the nickname "Super Mario Bros.".
Cast and characters[]
- Bob Hoskins as Mario Mario
- John Leguizamo as Luigi Mario
- Dennis Hopper as King Koopa
- Samantha Mathis as Princess Daisy and Daisy's Mother
- Fisher Stevens as Iggy
- Richard Edson as Spike
- Mojo Nixon as Toad
- Fiona Shaw as Lena
- Dana Kaminski as Daniella
- Gianni Russo as Anthony Scapelli
- Francesca Roberts as Big Bertha
- Lance Henriksen as King of Dinohattan
- Sylvia Harman as Old Woman
- Dan Castellaneta as Narrator
- Andrea Powell, Heather Pendergast and Melanie Salvatore as Brooklyn Girls
- Desiree Marie Velez as Angelica
- Robert D. Raiford as TV Announcer
- Thomas Merdis, Michael Harding, Michael Lynch, Scott Mactavish and Wallace Merck as Goomba
- Mona B. Fierro, Karen Brigman, Christi Work, Joy Rees and Lucy Alpaugh as Nuns
- Frank Welker as Yoshi
- Preston Lane as James
Deleted scenes[]
- The "Super Mario Bros. Movie" audio cassette mentioned a deleted scene, where Koopa de-evolved a Goomba into slime.
- Most of the scenes with the Scapelli brothers were filmed but ultimately deleted. Footage was recovered of a scene where a restaurant with a broken dishwater hear pitches for how to fix it from the Marios and Scapellis, then hire the latter. Outside the restaurant, the Scapellis gloat about how much more successful they are than the Marios. This is also the scene where Mario says "nobody touches my tools", which appears in the tie-in merchandise despite being cut from the movie.
Critical reception and sequel[]
- On the Conan O'Brian Show, Dennis Hopper stated that his role as Koopa was the worst role he ever had in his career.
- A sequel was later planned but ultimately ended up being canceled due to poor overall reviews and Box Office performance. In fact, the movie managed to produce a revenue of only $21 million at the Box Office, compared to its $48 million budget. This resulted in a net loss of $27 million.
Gallery[]
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To view Super Mario Bros. (1993 film)'s image gallery, click here.
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Trivia[]
Actors and characters[]
- Dustin Hoffman begged to be given the role of Mario, due to the fact that his kids loved the video game. Despite his pleas, the role went to Tom Hanks, under the condition that he would be paid $5 million to play Mario.
- Danny DeVito, who was the studio's top choice to portray Mario, was also passed on for Bob Hoskins, due to affordability.
- During his acting sessions, Bob Hoskins didn't know the movie he was working on would be based on a video game until his son asked him what he was working on. When he mentioned the movie's title, his son immediately recognized it and showed him the game on his own Nintendo system.
- In the movie, Mario mentioned that he was going to see Wrestlemania, revealing that he was a fan of pro-wrestling.
- Despite Steve Buscemi being originally cast as Luigi, the role ultimately went to John Leguizamo.
- Throughout the movie, everyone in the parallel dimension (Koopa's World) called the Mario Brothers "mammals", "plumbers", etc. The exception was the guard at the police station who asked for their identities.
- Daisy's original name was Diana, according to the Super Mario Bros. movie stickerbook. It was soon changed due to the fact that Princess Diana lived during that time.
- The sound that booted up the panel that Daisy used (in the room, where her father was in "fungus form") was a "1-UP" sound effect.
- Princess Peach, or briefly called "Toadstool", does not appear in the movie. However, the movie-only character Daniella has Peach's role as Mario's love interest. Additionally, like Peach, she also gets kidnapped by Koopa's minions.
- When the movie was being produced, Bob Hoskins broke his hand by slamming it into a door and had to wear a disguised cast for the rest of the movie.
Location[]
- The movie was filmed inside an inactive cement plant, located in Castle Hayne, North Carolina. The plant was originally designed and intended to be a visual showcase for the use of poured cement.
- Production Designer David L. Snyder (who previously worked as the art director for "Blade Runner") explained how a tremendous amount of effort had to be given to transform the facility into a working location. (To learn more, read the Markee Magazine feature article "The Making Of Super Mario Bros.: It Ain't No Game!")
Music[]
- "Somewhere My Love" (by Frankie Yankovic) was the song to which the Goombas were dancing to in the elevator. Later, Toad played a version of it on his harmonica. The song was originally composed for the 1965 movie, Doctor Zhivago. It also sounds similar to the underwater level music from the original Super Mario Bros. video game.
- "Almost Unreal" (by Roxette) was originally written to be part of the 1993 Disney movie Hocus Pocus. But, for some reason, it was put into the Super Mario Bros. soundtrack instead; while the song was re-recorded to omit references to the Disney movie, the lyric "I love when you do that hocus pocus to me" remained. Ironically, a promo for the then-upcoming VHS release of Hocus Pocus was featured at the beginning of the original Super Mario Bros. VHS.
Controversy[]
- Wolf Kroeger was the original art director for the film. However, he did not get along with the other art departments run by Patrick Tatopoulos. In a meeting with Rocky Morton, Kroeger got so offended by Morton's suggestions to his art that he walked out of the film. He was then replaced by David L. Snyder.
- The directors and actors originally signed on the film to produce a script written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (which was much darker and more satirical than the final product). However, producer Roland Joffé got cold feet on the tone of the script, and had a rewrite doctored by Ryan Rowe and Ed Solomon behind everyone's backs. This was in order to bring more mainstream appeal to the film, and to attract a distributor to help finance it. The new script was not presented to the cast and crew until the first day of principal photography, so it did not match any of the sets that were built. This infuriated Rocky Morton, and he burnt all his storyboards in the back lot. He and Annabel Jankel almost left the project, but decided to stay on since they felt no one else would understand their vision.
- The original director of photography, Peter Levy was let go after the first week of shooting. Dean Semler was then brought on to refocus the project.
- After a few weeks of shooting, Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg visited the set since his son was working on the film. After being shown a sizzle reel, Katzenberg convinced Disney to pick up distribution. The studio's involvement demanded massive rewrites, as they were hoping for the film to be a mainstream hit so they could use Mario characters in their theme parks.
- An article in Spy magazine claimed that the script was rewritten so often during production that the actors stopped paying attention to the daily rewrites. This escalated after Dennis Hopper had an altercation with screenwriter Parker Bennett, who cut down a monologue Hopper spent the time to memorize. He forced Bennett to read out the definition of "acting" in a dictionary.
- During the scene where Luigi drives the plumbing van through the alleyway, John Leguizamo accidentally slammed the brakes too hard, causing the sliding door to crush Bob Hoskins' hand. According to John, he was both nervous in wanting to impress Bob Hoskins, and hung over.
- The stunt double for Bob Hoskins fell on to concrete having missed the jump for the Sludge Gulper by a millisecond. The stunt was performed numerous times, and on the last take he missed the jump. He was taken to the ER after they stopped shooting, and fully recovered.
- Another set accident occurred during the mattress stunt where Bob Hoskins and the Brooklyn Girls actress fell a few feet and crashed into a wall. The girls stunt doubles weren't on set that day, and due to a tight schedule the actual actresses had to perform the stunt. The accident happened because a cable was loosened too much, causing the mattress to fall too fast. Thankfully, they only suffered minor injuries.
- Publicity on the movie went sour when a tabloid was published in the Los Angeles Times, on August 1992. This tabloid publicized much of the tension on set, with a very outspoken Dennis Hopper.
- Towards the end of principal photography, SAG began visiting the set and handing out their cards to the actors hoping to settle the tension they had with the directors. However, this didn't go anywhere since Rocky and Annabel's contract soon expired.
- Rocky and Annabel's contract was not renewed at the end of principal photography. Dean Semler finished up the remainder of the shoot with the second and third units, with most of the climax being filmed then.
- The producers locked Rocky and Annabel out of the editing room after shooting wrapped. Rocky had to involve the DGA in order to allow themselves back in and review the editing process.
- Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis Hopper have all said this was the worst filming experience of their lives.