At one point, Nintendo seemed keen on the idea of seeing their properties get the big screen treatment, allowing Hollywood Pictures to produce a film based on its Super Mario Bros. game series.
A report from GamesIndustry International indicates that Nintendo may be interested in getting back into the non-gaming entertainment picture and that includes movies.
Nintendo executive Shigeru Miyamoto has been chatting with Shinya Takahashi, general manager of Nintendo’s software planning and development division, to use characters in more films kind of like how Donkey Kong appeared in this summer’s Adam Sandler comedy Pixels.
“As we look more broadly at what is Nintendo’s role as an entertainment company, we’re starting to think more and more about how movies can fit in with that, and we’ll potentially be looking at things like movies in the future,” Miyamoto said back in June, during the company’s E3 showcase.
There have been circulating rumors with Nintendo properties, including producer Avi Arad talking about working on an animated Mario film (a far cry from the live-action trainwreck released previously), and Netflix producing a Legend of Zelda TV series. (Sadly, that one’s still unconfirmed.)
Speaking with Fortune, Miyamoto explained, “We’ve had, over the years, a number of people who have come to us and said ‘Why don’t we make a movie together-or we make a movie and you make a game and we’ll release them at the same time. Because games and movies seem like similar mediums, people’s natural expectation is we want to take our games and turn them into movies. I’ve always felt video games, being an interactive medium, and movies, being a passive medium, mean the two are quite different.”
Next year is looking to be a promising one for games-turned-movies, with Duncan Jones’ Warcraft, the Angry Birds film and Sony’s forthcoming Ratchet & Clank film all promising to live up to their potential.
If Nintendo can find that kind of groove, then it could easily produce successful movies and TV shows based on its brands. It’s just a finding the right people. Say, for instance, recruiting James Cameron or Ridley Scott to helm a Metroid movie. That would make for some interesting results.
