Future Nintendo films won’t be live action and we can expect to see the first one sometime in the next few years.
It looks like Nintendo might be setting their sights on the film industry, according to a new interview with Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima that appears in the Asahi Shimbun. Kyle McLain has translated some of the article’s main points on Twitter, such as how the Japanese games company will be “partnering with multiple production studios around the world,” while still aiming to “do as much as we can ourselves.”
Serkan Toto, CEO of the Tokyo-based Kantan Games, has shed some further light on Twitter regarding Kimishima’s comments on Nintendo’s future movie plans. According to Toto, the movies would likely be somewhat anime-based, with Kimishima citing the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie as “the reason why Nintendo is not looking at live-action movies.”
Kimishima refrained from mentioning any of the expected Nintendo IPs alongside the movie announcement, but it’s not hard to get the wheels spinning and start imagining how a new Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda movie would look. Nintendo fans may have some time to think about that, as Toto explains “the first title won’t be ready this year but also won’t take five years.”
The past few years have seen Nintendo making an experimental shift from their traditional role in the video game industry. After the Wii U’s failure to catch on with a wider audience, Nintendo finally took the plunge and began to dabble in the mobile games market with Miitomoand the upcoming Pokemon Go, and now this latest news about Nintendo movies could further broaden their presence under the digital entertainment umbrella. However, there’s still a lot riding on the hugely anticipated and enigmatic NX console, which is expected to release in March 2017.
Joe Jasko is a staff writer.
