 What's next for Nintendo and movies after the Super Mario Bros movie? We all know what we want from Nintendo. We want Zelda, Metroid and Smash Bros, probably in that order. Will Nintendo give us exactly what we want? Er, when has that ever happened? If there's one thing I've gleaned from the Super Mario Bros movie, it's that Nintendo is playing things as safe as they possibly can with movies. There will be no second Bob Hoskin Super Mario Bros disaster. Illumination is a studio that delivers safe, sturdy animated films that adhere to a well-worn formula. Maybe there are talking animals, maybe there's a misunderstood bad guy who's not really all that scary because he has a big heart full of love. When my daughter and I saw the Mario movie, there was a trailer for Spider-Verse 2 before the film, and it reminded me of the incredible ways that animation is being pushed in new directions at the moment by some slightly more experimental big-budget cartoons. Turning red, the bad guys, Ruby Gilman, Teenage Kraken, Puss in Boots. A lot of animation studios are experimenting with various art styles and storytelling. Nintendo doesn't want to do that. They want safe. They want a sure thing. They want a film that doesn't wreck their brand image, which, given Nintendo's movie history, is entirely fair. Of course, this refusal to take risks has led to the Mario movie's major criticism that it's a bit basic, but that's beside the point. So what does an ultra-safe, multiple-movie franchise strategy look like? Well, it doesn't involve rushing headfirst into a dozen new projects with the goal of making the new Avengers. And frankly, while this might not be a popular opinion, I don't think that rushing to a Smash Bros movie would be the smartest strategy for Nintendo. I think they're right to play it safe. The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise. Dracula Untold. The Amazing Spider-Man. A disappointing amount of DC and Marvel films. The original Mario Bros movie from the 90s. There have been plenty of films over the years that have been more focused on setting up sequels and spin-offs than on actually making enjoyable stories in their own right. Movie studios often rush to make franchises without giving audiences a reason to care in the first place. Even in cases where an initial movie is well received, a potential franchise can be brought down by hubris. My favourite example is another animated movie starring Chris Pratt, the Lego Movie. The first one was genuinely very good, so more were made. Instead of doing a sequel though, they first did the Lego Batman movie, and then the Lego Ninjago movie. Two spin-offs that were, I won't lie, decent enjoyable fun films in their own right, but they diluted interest in the whole franchise. Warner Bros fired Lego spin-off movies out so quickly that they killed the momentum of their own fledgling franchise. So I won't be surprised if a Legend of Zelda movie isn't forthcoming. Or if Nintendo simply doesn't give us the Smash Bros movie that many of us are desperate for. They're going to take each film as it comes, one by one, as they figure out the best strategy going forward. That's the right thing to do, because they certainly have lessons to learn from this first attempt. Lessons like, uh, don't play it so safe? Hang on, am I arguing against myself? Applauding Nintendo for not rushing out movies but complaining that they didn't take enough risks in their storytelling. Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing. That's how you can tell I'm a true Nintendo fan. I am completely contradictory in what I want. No, wait, what I want is a Zelda film, but that's not relevant right now. Because, of course, Mario isn't the first film in the recent Nintendo movie experiment. First we had Detective Pikachu, a film which absolutely did not play things safe. Remember Creepy Mr Mime? Remember Bill Nye Mewtwo? Remember how instead of doing an I Wanna Be the Very Best Ash Ketchum film, they did a noir mystery movie based on a game that hadn't been localised into English when they first started the project? I find that film fascinating. I think I prefer it over the Mario movie just because it took a big ol' swing, even if it didn't entirely hit for me personally. Here, though, it's clear that Nintendo and the Pokémon Company aren't getting ahead of themselves in rushing a Detective Pikachu franchise. They didn't immediately follow up with a host of additional Pokémon live-action movies. Detective Pikachu came out in 2019. Last month, Deadline reported that legendary pictures kinda maybe Sota has someone in talks to direct a sequel. They're taking things nice and slow. It's likely that whatever comes next will feel very different to the first film as they are just based on lessons learned. Nintendo is very skittish about all this. Everything has to be perfect, and in cases where they have complete control of an IP, unlike the Pokémon situation where they have some influence but don't make the final decisions, it seems like everything has to be completely on-brand. Mario and Pokémon aren't the only properties that Nintendo has explored for cinema, TV, or streaming. In 2015, it was leaked that Nintendo was working with Netflix to make a live-action Zelda show. The leak of the mere fact of this show's existence was enough for Nintendo to pull the plug and cancel an unleaked Star Fox show to boot. If partners don't do exactly what Nintendo wants, they walk. That's probably how we ended up with such a straightforward Mario film. A film that, yes, is fun but also feels so close to the established brand that it plays like 90 minutes of gameplay footage, albeit with better graphics and some delightful Jack Black. This isn't to say that there's anything wrong with the Mario movie, it's simply an acknowledgement that Illumination did exactly what Nintendo wanted and nothing else. It's also worth bearing in mind that all of these projects, Mario, Detective Pikachu, the cancelled Netflix stuff, all were greenlit during the Wii U era. A time when Nintendo also started exploring mobile games, amiibo, classic mini consoles, a theme park, and other off-beat stuff. Flagging console sales led to an unprecedented amount of experimentation. Now that the Switch has proven such a big hit, Nintendo has reigned things in a bit and returned to a more traditional console gaming focus business strategy. While it's nice to have the Mario movie for brand recognition, it's not as necessary as it may have been if the Switch hadn't revitalized Nintendo's core consumer base. This being the case, I suspect that Nintendo will build up the Mario Cinematic brand a little more before exploring other options, which, hmm, while I don't want Nintendo to rush things and make a big mess, I can't deny if I had the choice I'd rather have a Zelda film than a Mario one. I feel like Zelda is more inherently suited to the cinema. Again, not saying anything negative about the Mario movie, just saying something positive about a potential Zelda one. Shigeru Miyamoto has spent the better part of two decades fighting anyone who wants to give Mario games a stronger narrative. If you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out our video on Super Mario Galaxy 2 for some juicy gossip about how he and Yoshiaki Koizumi argued like a married couple about how much narrative the game should have. In contrast, Zelda has dozens of strong potential storylines to explore. Basically pick any game from the Nintendo 64 onwards and there's enough meat on those bones for a film in a way that perhaps is not true of most Mario games. I'd say the same is true of Metroid. Some games would make better films than others, although that's more of a quality of storytelling rather than a quantity issue. This of course leads us to another point. Would Smash Bros. work has a film? Fighting games have a rocky history with cinema to say the least. It's not enough to have a vague justification for characters punching each other. A big hand or some evil clouds or what have you might not be a particularly strong narrative hook, so a Smash movie would of necessity need a bigger departure from the game's storyline. I don't know how I'm not the biggest Smash lore guy, maybe I'm wrong here, but I feel like the games work because the core experience is fun, not because of the twists and turns of the plot and subspace emissary. As is the case with a lot of fighting games, the plot exists merely to give a paper-thin context for the next fight between two recognizable characters. This ultimately is the problem with any video game movie. It's hard to make a film that is more enjoyable than simply playing the game the film is based on. My daughter came out of the Mario movie and immediately wanted to play Mario Odyssey on the Switch. This is mission accomplished for Nintendo, but it does highlight the limitation of any film adaptation of a game. The way to make a film compelling is to provide interesting, relatable characters and a narrative that's exciting to watch unfold. Not all game movies have quite nailed this. In fact, very few have really genuinely got this right. If we look at something like The Last of Us, a game that was basically designed as an interactive TV show from the start, that's a relatively simple conversion. That adaptation worked so well that my mother watched it, but that's because the original game was built with a story-first mindset. For Nintendo properties, that's not always the case. In many ways, Mario is actually one of the hardest Nintendo properties to adapt, not only because Miyamoto doesn't want Mario games to be too plot-heavy, but also because Mario is a company mascot and therefore cannot be shown to have any genuine flaws. With a mascot character, though, recognition is always more important than character growth. The Mario movie is doing fantastically at the box office for a reason, and it's achieving its primary goal of cementing Mario's reputation with society's youngest demographic. We will almost certainly get a sequel, one which will probably again play things very safe and end up as pleasant, enjoyable, solid cartoon entertainment. I suspect that after that film, we might, might, might get more Nintendo properties on the big screen. But, and this is a pretty big but, I have no concrete reason to believe that I am right about any of this. So just to be clear, I have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm probably wrong, and if you have your own theory or if you disagree with my assessment on any film, game, or other media that I've expressed here, I concede you are probably right. Who knows? Maybe Nintendo will announce the Zelda movie tomorrow, complete with a Chris Pratt Mario cameo, and Detective Pikachu, and also Samuel L. Jackson is here, and he's got an envelope with a red seal, or he did have it, it just got stolen by Joker. He never saw it coming!