He is a plumber by trade. The best that the gaming world created.
Hardly anyone who didn’t have a Gameboy in their hands in the 80s, fiddled around with it – and let Super Mario run through daring courses at the push of a button.
Now the little hero with a mustache and dungarees is coming to the big screen and is causing the cinema sensation of the year. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” grossed $377 million worldwide in its first weekend – and quite unexpectedly managed the best theatrical opening of a video adaptation of all time.
The muscular gorilla Donkey Kong is an opponent of Mario
That’s far more than “Frozen 2” (2019) with Frozen Elsa, which previously held the opening record for an animated film with $228.2 million. In Germany, too, Super Mario bounced past John Wick and Manta, Manta to the top of the charts.
The story: In 92 colorful minutes, Mario and his plumber brother Luigi end up in the kingdom of mushrooms through a drainpipe and are separated from each other. Together with a talking mushroom and Princess Peach, Mario is now looking for Luigi and has to master enemies and adventures.
Mario and Princess Peach looking for Luigi
Why is this making fans flock to the cinema? First analyzes in the USA show: 59 percent of the viewers are male, 45 percent between 18 and 34 years old. This means that Mario not only attracts families – as with most animated films – but also many young adults with apparently nostalgic feelings who loved Mario when they were children.
Mario inventor Shiguru Miyamoto (70) celebrated his first successes on the Gameboy
In the early 1980s, the Japanese game manufacturer Nintendo commissioned the young employee Shigeru Miyamoto (70 today) to develop a new game. In 1981, Mario first appeared in the game Donkey Kong. At that time his name was still Jumpman and he wasn’t a plumber, but a carpenter.
Charlie Day (47, “Kill The Boss”) speaks in the original Luigi, in the German version Gerrit Schmidt-Foß (small photo)
Chris Pratt (43, “Jurassic World”) is Mario’s original voice, we speak Leonhard Mahlich (44)
Shooting star Anya Taylor-Joy (26, “The Queen’s Gambit”) is Princess Peach, in Germany the niece of Gerrit Schmidt-Foß, Dalia Mya (21)
It wasn’t until 1985 that the now world-famous video game “Super Mario Bros” came onto the market. Today there are more than 700 million Mario games sold. The little plumber even has a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
secret of success? Game developer Miyamoto (earning $1.8 million a year) says, “We want to bring families together. Our games are designed to create a warm feeling, to bring a smile to players’ faces.”
In Germany, too, the success was probably not expected. While stars like Chris Pratt lend their voices to the cartoon characters in the US, the lesser-known Gerrit Schmidt-Foß and his niece Dalia Mya speak the main roles in the German version.
At the box office, the proceeds still flow through all pipes. year
This article comes from BILD am SONNTAG. The ePaper of the entire issue is available here.