Nintendo’s Unseen Sketches: Super Mario Bros. Movie Introduces Mario and Luigi’s Family, Thanks to Nintendo’s Unused Designs

The brand-new Super Mario Bros. movie shed light on a lot of aspects of the world of Mario. Among them, the thing that pleased fans the most was the introduction of the Mario family. Yes! the movie showed the immediate family of both of the plumber brothers and gave a glimpse at their everyday life.

To add to the shock, the director revealed that the family is entirely based on official sketches by Nintendo that they had never used before! Some of the characters such as Mario’s dad are almost a one-to-one adaptation of the official sketches, which probably means the family is canon in the Mario-verse!

Secrets behind the Super Mario Family!

Recently in an interview with Polygon, directors of the movie Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic shared the importance of the family scene and how they managed to make it a reality. According to the directors, the family was necessary in order to make the protagonist feel real, and they made it happen with Nintendo’s approval. 

“Nintendo were completely open to it — they were fully on board with this cinematic representation of Mario and knowing that he’s not just going to be a guy who appears from a pipe and says ‘Wahoo!’ and then he’s off on his adventure. We needed to do a little more work to believe that he’s a real guy with a real life and real problems. So they were totally on board with creating this family for Mario.” said Horvath. 

Read more: Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. Movie Is Already Having a Glorious Ride, Sets Global Records on Its Opening Day

But in creating the family, the team was concerned about taking too much creative liberty and potentially upsetting the fans that is why they requested Nintendo for suggestions, and they complied by proving the development team with “unused” character sketches of the extended family of Mario and Luigi. 

“They did send us character sketches that they had done years ago that they had never used; Mario’s dad is almost like a one-to-one design adaptation of [Nintendo’s] original Mario’s dad design that they provided us. That was really great to be able to get that in the movie,” added Horvath. Revealing how the process was fulfilled. 

However, this movie may be the first time the Mario family made its official appearance in front of the public, but previously, there had been some instances where Nintendo had teased some of the members. The Mario Dad had made a partial appearance in a classic television series based on the world of SMB.  

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