Nintendo’s president, Tatsumi Kimishima, was recently interviewed by Asashi and thanks to the translations by NeoGAF user GSR, we’re finding out the company is very interested in a return to film. Turns out that Nintendo would like to produce their own films, the first one will be in the works within the next five years, though what franchise they are bringing out first is unknown.
The film industry isn’t entirely unique for Nintendo, they have released cartoons in the past for Mario and even did a Mario live action film, though it completely bombed. Since then, the company has been focusing more on the video game medium, until recently.
Tatsumi voiced his opinion on producing films with Nintendo’s franchises, though don’t expect them to be live action. According to the translated interview, Nintendo is currently in talks with a number of partners and while also partnering with Hollywood companies is an option, Nintendo would like control of the production rather than licensing a franchise out.
Furthermore, it seems that this first film will be a test as to how well Nintendo could do within the film industry with animated films, possibly like the works from Disney and Pixar. The current Nintendo president wasn’t giving any details as to what IP they would be using for the film either.
“We’d like to use IPs that are really quite popular. But I can’t exactly say “we’re doing Mario!” all I can say is that we’ll make something everyone can enjoy.”
With the company looking to use an IP that is already well known and could bring an audience in when the film launches then we’ll likely see either Mario or the Zelda franchise being used. Let’s just hope they can do better than the live action Mario film that released decades ago.
