Today in unnecessary gritty reboot news, the classic Nintendo video game series Super Mario Bros. gets the Christopher Nolan treatment.  Snow White and the Huntsman scribe Evan Daugherty thought it would be a good idea to take a gritty look at the world of Super Mario Bros. in a series of four short films he wrote and directed called The Four Players, and here we are.  The first short, titled The Fixer, focuses on Mario and the whole thing plays like a College Humor parody.  The film opens on dripping pipes and shows “gritty Mario” putting a mushroom into a blender to make a smoothie.  If that wasn’t enough, the second short titled The Addict pits Luigi (or "Lou" as he's called here) as a recovering addict because what Super Mario Bros. was missing was a hardened druggie angle.  I’d point to these short films as a prime example of how not everything needs a gritty reboot.

Two other shorts focusing on Princess Peach and Toad will be released tomorrow, but for now you can marvel at the ridiculousness of the Mario and Luigi films after the jump.

In a statement that was released, Daugherty had this to say about the project:

“Making these short films gave me a chance to really ‘do my own thing,’ while having a little fun treating one of my favorite video game properties with a darker vibe,” said Daugherty.  “I had been kicking around the idea for years before I was even working in the industry, so to finally be able to share these films with fans on Polaris is a very exciting thing.”