Nintendo Says It Will Walk Away from Mario Movie if Needed

Nintendo is working hard to bring its characters to platforms where they have never been. One of the places Mario and other Nintendo properties have shown up that is outside of Nintendo’s traditional envelope is mobile games. Nintendo is also working on a Mario movie with Illumination Entertainment.

That is the same firm that made the successful movies Minions and Despicable Me. Nintendo has shared some new details about the flick including one factoid that if the idea isn’t compelling enough it will walk away from the movie altogether. The details come from an interview that Shigeru Miyamoto gave recently that has been translated to English.

In the interview, he stated that he had been thinking about a movie for “many years now.” “Interactive experiences are completely different from non-interactive media, and to make a movie I want a film expert to do the work,” Miyamoto said about Illumination.

Miyamoto said that he began discussing a Mario movie with the CEO of Illumination Chris Meledandri over two years ago. “Chris is extremely cost-conscious and time-conscious in his quest to make successful movies,” Miyamoto said. The screenplay is in the works right now and Meledandri will be a producer on the film. “We’ve talked together and share the feeling that if we can’t make something interesting we’ll just call it quits,” Miyamoto said. The current plan is for the film to be in theaters ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics reports Gamespot.