The Big Picture

• The 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie was a critical and commercial failure, receiving backlash from both audiences and critics.
• The behind-the-scenes production of the film was disastrous, with constant conflicts, budget overruns, and multiple rewrites.
• The film's failure prevented Nintendo from exploring adaptations of their other popular franchises into films and TV projects for many years.

2023 saw the release of Illumination's The Super Mario Bros. Movie but this isn't the first time that the Brooklyn plumbers jumped from video game screens onto movies screens. Their first outing was, in a word, bad. Not only is 1993's Super Mario Bros. starring John Leguizamo as Luigi and Bob Hoskins as Mario nothing like the games it takes its name from, but the movie has a dark and bizarre tone that did not sit well with hardcore Mario fans and casual moviegoers. The backlash the film received from both audiences and critics was so severe, that it prevented Nintendo from trying to adapt their other popular franchises into film and TV projects for many years.

It isn't hard to see why, as anyone can tell you that the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie is bad, but what most people don't know is that The Super Mario Bros. movie has one of the most infamous and disastrous behind-the-scenes productions in the industry. Anything that could go wrong, went very wrong. The production went over schedule and budget, everyone involved was constantly at odds with each other, and the film had nine different writers before shooting even began. The chaotic production of Super Mario Bros almost caused the first film based on a video game to be the last.

Nintendo Wanted To Make Video Games Like Super Mario Bros Into a Movie Much Earlier

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Nintendo had single-handedly revived the ailing video game home console market with the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Mario was the face of it all. In 1990 Universal Pictures released The Wizard, starring Fred Savage and Christian Slater, which was about a neurodivergent video game prodigy and Nintendo was paid $100,000 by Universal to license their logos, franchises, and game footage for the film. While it seemed like a great deal for Nintendo, they're a company that likes control over its properties and with The Wizard, they sold away their creative control for a small profit. So, in 1990 Bill White, then director of advertising and public relations, became serious about making Mario a movie star, and with permission from Nintendo of America's founder and former president Minoru Arakawa, he started hearing pitches from movie studios.

According to Blake J. Harris' book covering Nintendo's first attempt at creating movies, "Console Wars," Nintendo heard multiple pitches from many major Hollywood studios that offered them millions of dollars for their chance at making the movie, but Nintendo wasn't interested in the money, they wanted creative control. This led them to bypass the studio system and go with a pair of independent filmmakers, Jake Eberts and Roland Joffe. The duo was known for their Oscar-nominated films The Killing Fields and The Mission, with Joffe getting two Best Director nominations for both films. From Eberts and Roland, Nintendo was interested in a more adult take on Mario. They figured that having a slightly edgier film might lead to a broader audience, especially ones that didn't play or even like video games. With Nintendo on board, they sold the film rights to Super Mario Bros. and all that was left was finding a director, writer, and actors, and then shooting the movie.

Though Joffe was a two-time Oscar-nominated director, he wanted to focus on producing and hired director Greg Beeman, who was known for a single movie starring Corey Feldman and Corey Haim called License to Drive. That fact didn't sit well with distributors, and they refused to do so if Beeman was at the helm. So Beeman was let go and Joffe hired a husband and wife directing team, Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel. Morton and Jankel were famous for directing music videos, but their biggest claim to fame was creating The Max Headroom Show. Morton and Jankel were not only keen to lean into the adult nature of the film, but they also wanted to make it bizarre and grimy. Despite this making Nintendo uneasy, they ultimately hired the couple and hoped that their creative vision would do Mario justice.

Now That Nintendo Had Their Directors, All They Needed Was a Solid Script

There were ultimately nine different writers attached to the project, none of whom could agree on the tone for the film. The first writer, Barry Marrow, wrote a treatment for the film. According to Harris' research, Marrow was just coming off an Oscar win with his Rain Man screenplay, and it was obvious that his treatment was deemed darker than Nintendo expected. Feeling slighted, Marrow left the project and writers Jim Jennewein and Tom S. Parker were hired. Though they had no formal credits to their name, they just sold their script Stayed Tuned for $750,000 and were seen as the next hot Hollywood writers. Their script took on a more lighthearted approach. The script was well-liked by Nintendo and the producers, but Morton and Jankel still wanted something darker. The next writers hired were Parker Bennett and Terry Runte. Bennett and Runte were known for their thriller/comedy Mystery Date and were asked by Morton and Jankel to add a science fiction flare to the film. To everyone's surprise, the script was decent and pleased everybody.

Suddenly, Morton and Jankel became bored with the script, wanting it more like Ghostbusters, and demanded another rewrite. This not only scared Nintendo and the producers, but the financial backers were getting progressively frustrated that the project hadn't begun shooting. So Bennett and Runte rewrote the script and introduced Dinohatten, a world where the dinosaurs never left and instead evolved into modern times. But with pressure from the backers, the directors fired Bennett and Runte and hired Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais to rewrite the film yet again. Their first draft was in the action-packed vein of Die Hard, but no one liked it. Their second draft, however, must've been gold because not only did Nintendo, the producers, and the directors love the script, but it was good enough to get Bob Hoskins to sign on as Mario, John Leguizamo as Luigi, and Dennis Hopper as King Koopa.

After the casting, shooting was going to take place two months later in North Carolina, but Eberts and Joffe were worried the script was too dark and nothing like the video game world of The Mushroom Kingdom, and they blamed that on Morton and Jankel. It was at this point the producers realized they had made a mistake with their choice of directors, so to salvage the film and keep it on schedule, they hired two script doctors, Ed Solomon (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) and Ryan Rowe (Tapeheads) without the knowledge of Morton or Jankel, to make the script more fun and lighthearted.

Once Production Began on 'Super Mario Bros.' the Problems Intensified

When the actors arrived on set and read their scripts, they were dismayed to learn the script was different from the one they signed up for. Most of the actors thought of quitting, and so they tried to rehire Clement and La Frenais to un-doctor the script they wrote, but they weren't available. So they then had to rehire Bennett and Runte, who originally introduced the sci-fi element, to repair the script as the production went on. Bennett and Runte are ultimately credited with writing the film, but they also served as intermediaries to the producers, actors, and directors because no one was talking to anyone. Script changes would happen so quickly, that actors didn't bother memorizing their lines until the directors called action because they knew it was going to change eventually. According to John Leguizamo, he and Hoskins hated working on the film so much, that they were constantly drinking throughout the production just to get through it. This may have been the cause of Leguizamo breaking Hoskins' finger during a driving stunt, which resulted in Hoskins wearing a cast for the rest of the shoot, which can be seen in many scenes in the film. Actors Richard Edson and Fisher Stevens, who play Spike and Iggy respectively, gave up on the script and improvised all their lines in the film. Unsurprisingly, the crew and extras had it even worse.

Morton and Jankel would give two conflicting sets of directions to the crew, and they had to get the tasks done as quickly as possible before the pair would change their minds. Probably the most infamous story from this production was when Rocky Morton allegedly poured hot coffee on an extra because he believed the extra wasn't "dirty" enough. Not only that, but a stuntman's pants caught fire when a stray spark landed on his lap and an electrician nearly died by grabbing an electrified lever, resulting in him having to be kicked away from the source. The production went well past its ten-week shooting schedule to fifteen, and they were horribly over budget. For some reason, Morton and Jankel didn't want Mario and Luigi in their iconic red and green jumpsuits until the producers forced them to do so. Things got so bad, that Morton and Jankel weren't allowed to help with re-shoots when the film needed more action scenes, and they were also barred from the editing room. Before the film even came out, Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel's careers were ruined.

The Critics Ripped 'Super Mario Bros.' Apart

Shockingly enough, despite the disastrous production, the producers and Nintendo had enough footage to put together a 90-minute coherent film. Then, on May 28th, 1993, Super Mario Bros. came out, and it was an instant game over. Film critics ripped the film to shreds, audiences hated it, and kids who were fans of the Super Mario games were let down that the film felt and looked nothing like the games they loved so much. Bob Hoskins has since claimed that this was the only movie he ever regretted in his career and Nintendo has never publicly talked about the film. Anyone who worked on the film unanimously agreed that Morton and Jankel were out of their element and the film should have aimed at the target audience first and worried about the rest of the world later, because regardless of who a movie is made for, if it's good, then people will see it. The film has reached a cult status over the years and many people see it as a weird family film that was like other weird 90s family films like Mom and Dad Save the World and Stay Tuned.