There’s nothing like a surprise movie casting to generate hype for your upcoming film. Unfortunately for Nintendo, the headliner for their animated Mario movie has many scratching their heads.
As a joint project between Nintendo and Illumination (the studio behind Despicable Me and The Secret Life of Pets), an animated Mario film will be gracing the silver screen in North America on December 21, 2022. During Thursday’s Nintendo Direct, the cast list was revealed for the upcoming movie and features… Chris Pratt as Mario?
Yep, you heard that right, Pratt will be voicing the titular character for Nintendo’s upcoming Mario film. This is not a joke.
Chris Pratt as Mario Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach Charlie Day as Luigi Jack Black as Bowser Keegan-Michael Key as Toad Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike Surprise cameos from Charles Martinet
The cast of the upcoming animated Mario movie also features some incredibly inspired casting, such as Charlie Day voicing Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, and Keegan-Michael Key as Toad. However, for many Nintendo fans, the choice to cast Pratt as Mario when original voice actor Charles Martinet or Italian-American Danny DeVito were right there has many… quite confused.
One Twitter user, on the other hand, seemingly predicted this outcome well over a year ago somehow.
I'm calling it now, the Mario Bros movie will NOT have Charles Martinet play Mario for no reason and cast someone like Chris Pratt
Nintendo is doing it big for the 35th anniversary of “Super Mario Bros.”
For decades, Mario has been not only the face of Nintendo, but the general face of gaming period. Everyone knows who Mario is. The super powered plumber has been in our lives across multiple Nintendo consoles for decades. He’s given us so many memories.
Now, Nintendo is bringing some of those memories back. To celebrate the Super Mario Bros. franchise on Thursday during a Nintendo Direct presentation, they revealed their new Super Mario 3D All-Stars pack.
This is a collection of Super Mario games from previous consoles. It contains Super Mario 64 from the Nintendo 64, Super Mario Sunshine from the GameCube, and Super Mario Galaxy from the Wii. The pack hits the Switch on September 18.
🚨 BREAKING 🚨 Super Mario 3D All-Stars announced for Nintendo Switch.
Needless to say, Nintendo fans are super excited about the return of these classic games.
But they’re also very, very confused. That’s because while the games will be released on the 18th, they’ll also be available for a limited time only. The number of physical copies of the game will be limited in stock.
On top of that, the version available on the Nintendo eShop will only be available for purchase until March 31, 2021. After that, the game will disappear from the store and only be available to redownload.
Yes, there’s plenty of time and plenty of ways to get the game. But the way Nintendo is rolling this out is just… strange.
Fans had a lot to say about it. They’re worried it’s going to be scalped on the aftermarket.
Nintendo's decision to make this a limited release is baffling. It's going to be scalped to hell, just like the Wii version of Super Mario All-Stars. (Nintendo eventually reprinted it).
It's even got a limited release on the e-shop! After March 2021, you can only re-download. https://t.co/2vgdVcxuPe
Super Mario 3D All Stars, revealed in today's #NintendoDirect, will not only have a limited physical release, but will also only be available to purchase on the eshop until March.
Nintendo pulling Super Mario 3D All Stars (March 2021) is absolutely ridiculous. It is a digital game where they hold the license. Even Disney gave up on their dumb "vault."
Also, I just preordered Super Mario 3D All Stars…
Maybe I'm the problem…
— SJW Spider-Man 🕷️(Be a superhero, wear a mask) (@SjwSpiderman) September 3, 2020
It’s still unclear what Nintendo’s purpose in limited the game is, but it doesn’t matter. People are going to still buy it anyway.
The New Orleans Saints released customized hats and shirts for fans to wear in Nintendo’s popular video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
[jwplayer 5zqjVoKS-ThvAeFxT]
If you have a Nintendo membership, you can enter the Design ID you want at the Custom Design Portal in the Able Sister’s shop ⚜️ pic.twitter.com/0Cr9cmicxZ
Many video game fans have embraced stay-at-home orders due to the novel coronavirus by turning to the recently-released “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” exploring deserted islands while gardening and fishing from the comfort of their own homes. Cognizant of that, the New Orleans Saints released several customized apparel options their fans can use to show their loyalty in-game.
It’s a cool move for something of a niche audience, though the game’s popularity can’t be understated. The game itself is breaking sales records, while its platform (the Nintendo Switch) has been sold-out nationwide, leading Nintendo to scramble in an effort to resupply retailers.
Interested fans with a Nintendo membership can now wear jerseys representing Saints superstars like Drew Brees (using the Design ID “GOAT”), Michael Thomas (“CantGuardMike”), and Cameron Jordan (“CamJordan94”), as well as a Saints hat (“Geaux Saints”). So be sure to log on and represent your Saints fandom.
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With sports being out of the picture right now we’re all looking for ways to distract ourselves from the serious news that seems to get worse and worse each day.
We can still do that with sports, which we’re doing every day at For The Win. All of my awesome colleagues are finding creative ways to create some pretty darn fun sports content even though sports aren’t happening… and they’re really good at it.
We’re also putting out some good content to help you find something to watch to get you through these days and nights because we’re here for you and we’re just like you, spending our nights finding the best movies on Netflix, or the best food shows on Netflix, or what’s on Amazon Prime, or on Hulu. We got it all covered.
This list is a really fun trip down memory lane and it’s kicked off by Bo Jackson from the original Tecmo Bowl for the original Nintendo. While this list isn’t a ranking, it might as well be because Bo is the greatest video game athlete of all time.
And it’s not even close.
If you’re old like me chances are you spent hours playing Tecmo against either your friends or the “computer” and you know the Raiders were often the team you picked to play. Why? Because of Bo Jackson.
If you’ve never played Tecmo, let me explain why Bo was so good.
First of all, Tecmo was a simple game that gave you only four offensive plays to choose from. Most teams had two run plays and two pass plays. That was it. The defense had the same four offensive plays to choose from and if the defense picked the same play as the offense (which wasn’t hard to do!) the play would normally go for a loss of yards. It could also lead to fist fights and damning accusations of your friend cheating by peeking at your controller, which only added to the intensity of the game.
You had to be careful when you picked the Bo play, but it was also fun when the defense picked the Bo play because that’s when you saw how great Bo could be, as he’d often break free for some positive yards.
But if you picked the Bo play and the defense didn’t then chances are you were running Bo all over the field while taking it to the house. It didn’t matter if you were 99 yards from the end zone or 2 yards from the end zone – Bo was going to score. If you’ve never felt the joy of zig-zagging Bo through a defense before breaking free for a long TD then you haven’t lived!
Sometimes against the computer I’d pick the Raiders and down the ball at the 1-yard line on purpose just so I could see if I could break a 99-yarder with Bo. It was like a sweet drug that every kid who grew up with a Ninentedo in their room knows all to well. Chances are if that was you and you’re reading this right now you’re trying to think of a way you can play this game again just so you can break off a classic Bo run.
He. Was. So. Good.
The second best player on Tecmo, meanwhile, was Lawrence Taylor. The former Giants LB could fly around the field and he could block ever field goal and extra point ever taken. Like, he wouldn’t get one every now and then, he’d block EVERY SINGLE FIELD GOAL. So if you were playing the Giants you had to take that into account when scoring points and trying to win a game – because all kicks were out of play.
But yeah, this game was all about Vincent Bo Jackson. He was a legend in the NFL, in MLB, and Tecmo Bowl and now I need to find a way to break off a long TD run.
Quick hits: Brady’s sweet new pad… Stephen A.’s stay at home message… Best video games to play… And more!
