See Chris Pratt As Super Mario
BossLogic has put aside the negative comments on Chris Pratt's casting as Super Mario and envisioned him as the turtle-squashing plumber.
This article is more than 2 years old
Though the Guardians of the Galaxy star, Chris Pratt’s casting as the beloved game character, Super Mario is being widely criticized, there is no dearth in the number of people who are actually invested in the idea of the actor’s voice bringing the Italian plumber to life on the screen. Thus even though the film is going to be an animated feature and Pratt is only voicing the character, there are already many fan arts envisioning the actor as Mario and obviously, the best so far has been from the well-known artist BossLogic.
A fan approached the artist with an image of Chris Pratt as his character Owen Grady in the Jurassic World films and the friendly dinosaur, Blue, and requested it to be altered to fit Mario’s world. BossLogic accepted the challenge and turned Pratt into the bristle-mustached Mario while the dinosaur has been transformed into Yoshi from the Super Mario Bros games.
The decision to cast Chris Pratt as the voice of Mario in the upcoming Super Mario Bros film was announced by the video game giant, Nintendo via Twitter on Thursday. Through its YouYube channel Nintendo Direct, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto explained that with Pratt on board they will be creating a “new piece of entertainment” that will bring about the revival of Super Mario Bros on the big screen. He has assured that the cinematic adaptation of the game is for everyone, regardless of the fact whether they are fans of the Super Mario game or not. While the production of the film has begun, it will be quite some time before it hits the big screen.
The Super Mario film, to be headlined by Chris Pratt, has been co-financed by Universal Pictures and Nintendo, and will be produced by Illumination Founder and CEO, Chris Meledandri and Representative Director and Fellow of Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto. It has been announced that the feature will be directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic.
“Mario and Luigi are two of the most beloved heroes in all of popular culture, and we are honored to have the unique opportunity to work so closely with Shigeru Miyamoto and the widely imaginative team at Nintendo to bring these characters to life in an animated movie, unlike any film Illumination has made to date,” said Meledandri.
Apart from Chris Pratt as Mario, the Super Mario film is also set to star The Queen’s Gambit star Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Charlie Day as Mario’s brother Luigi, Jack Black as the villain Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as the funny sidekick Toad, Seth Rogen as the gorilla Donkey Kong, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek, Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike, as well as surprise cameos from Charles Martinet.
Ever since the cast of the Super Mario film has been announced, the fact that none of the chosen actors are Italian has drawn a lot of flak on social media, especially Chris Pratt’s casting as the turtle-quashing Mario. Many fans of the popular games are finding it hard to get behind the idea of Pratt sprouting an Italian accent for portraying Mario when according to the general consensus, an Italian actor should have been chosen for the task. But nevertheless, Pratt has assured in a recent Instagram video that he has been “working hard” to perfect the character’s voice as playing the role has been a dream come true for him. And anyway, in its press release Nintendo has made it clear that the A-list voice cast for the film was picked solely because of the chosen actors’ ability to “capture the unique spirit of their character.”
The Super Mario film is currently set to hit theaters sometime in December 2022.
