Many Nintendo fans were wary of the news that Chris Pratt is voicing Mario in the upcoming animated Super Mario Bros. movie. Now, co-producer Chris Meledandri has suggested that Pratt won’t be attempting an Italian accent for everyone’s favorite plucky plumber.
In an interview with TooFab, Meledandri defended the casting of Pratt in the first place. According to the co-producer, “All I can tell you is the voice that he’s doing for us in Mario is phenomenal. Yeah, I can’t wait for people to hear it.”
But Meledandri revealed Chris Pratt will not be using an over-the-top “It’s a-me, Mario!” accent in the film. “That’s not the tenor of the performance throughout the film,” he said.
Still, the film will explain why Mario sounds different from his many video game appearances over the years. “We cover it in the movie,” he promised. “So you’ll see we definitely nod to that.”
Pratt was a controversial casting choice for many reasons, but one is that he has no actual Italian heritage. And this is something that Meledandri tackled head-on: “Well, as an Italian American myself, I understand. You know, I understand the comments. Charlie Day, who’s playing Luigi, actually comes from Italian heritage. Yeah, so that’s our nod.”
The movie looks to be a star-studded affair. In addition to Pratt as Mario and Day as Luigi, we’re getting Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, and Sebastian Maniscalco as Foreman Spike. The animated film comes from Despicable Me studio Illumination, with close input from Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto.
In other words, Nintendo has really put a dream team together for this movie. Super Mario Bros. premieres on December 21, 2022. But only time will tell if this film will make up for the abomination that was the 1993 live-action Mario movie!