The Super Mario Bros. ’90s Movie Is Now Beloved, Here’s The Incredible Proof

Starring Bob Hoskins (Who Framed Rodger Rabbit) as Mario, John Leguizamo (Sid the sloth in Ice Age) as Luigi, Dennis Hopper (the bad guy in Speed) as President Koopa, and Samantha Mathis (Crysta in Ferngully) as Princess Daisy, the 1993’s Super Mario Bros movie was a trainwreck from the beginning. 

Directed by British filmmaking duo Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, the movie was a complete disaster from the very beginning.

After a long list of top picks for starring roles in the film turned it down, the production finally snagged Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper. 

However, other issues continued to plague production. When Disney was granted the rights to use Mario from the Nintendo Corporation, Super Mario Bros was ordered to clean up its act.

The film needed to be more family-friendly, which led to a near-total rewrite of the script. 

Now actors/actresses who had signed on to the movie were challenged to play completely different roles. Some of the sets that had already been built were rendered void by the script rewrite, and the ending of the story changed completely.

What was left was a Super Mario Bros movie that seemed a bit piezy and confusing at times. 

The cast of the movie was so unhappy with the shift in the script that many of them tried to quit altogether.

Eventually, the film was completed and released to audiences. Initially, the film did not succeed. Over the course of its box office run, Super Mario Brothers only pulled in around $38 million worldwide against a $48 million budget. 

Fast forward to 2023, and the 90s flop had morphed into a cult classic. Its popularity was a slow burn, but you could speculate that it may be because all of the kids who loved the movie for its colorful and inventive visual effects have since become adults who can now purchase the movie for themselves. 

Regardless, Super Mario Bros is a movie that won’t soon be forgotten. Even though the Goombas are terribly crafted, Princess Peach is nowhere to be found, Mario’s last name is Mario, and the ending doesn’t really tie the movie together very well, 90s kids loved it. 

Even though Dennis Hopper said it was the worst movie he had ever been a part of and he hated every minute of filming, the Super Mario Bros movie remains. He’s likely not complaining about any of the financial kickbacks he receives from sales of the movie. 

Some movies just become a part of pop-culture DNA, and this strange video game adaptation is a prime example.

It was, of course, the very first completed live-action adaptation of a Nintendo video game.