Nintendo has made a very interesting filing last month.
As reported by NintendoLife, Copyright.gov has a listing for what it refers to as an “Untitled Donkey Kong Project ;Motion picture.” What is interesting about this is that the two parties filing this listing are Nintendo Studios LLC and Universal Pictures.
Universal Pictures is of course the film company that was founded by Carl Laemmle and others all the way back in 1912. What may throw you off is the name Nintendo Studios LLC. That isn’t actually the original Nintendo in Japan, or Nintendo of America, or Nintendo Pictures, the cg production company that helped make Death Stranding 2: On The Beach.
Nintendo Studios LLC, alongside M Brothers Productions, LLC, is one of two companies established to make the Super Mario Brothers Movie. Nintendo Studios LLC seems to not be involved in The Legend of Zelda movie that Sony Pictures is working on, so there is at least a possibility it may have been partly established by Universal Pictures. In any case, this seems to connect it with Universal’s and Illumination’s Super Mario Brothers Movie and what could be a franchise.
What makes this filing even more fascinating, at least for the fans who remember it, is that 42 years ago, Universal Pictures’ parent company, Universal Studios, sued Nintendo, alleging that their character Donkey Kong was trademark infringement of King Kong, which they claimed to own.
We won’t go through the technical details of this case, but King Kong’s IP rights had always had legally dubious standing. Universal would lose their case to Nintendo on several grounds, in a legal victory that would help establish Nintendo’s foothold in America.
While Legendary Pictures struck a deal with Universal to add King Kong to WB’s Monsterverse, it’s rich that this has all come full circle. Universal now seems to be working with Nintendo to make a new Donkey Kong movie, decades after they initially tried to pull the Donkey Kong arcade game from the US market.
Oddly, Nintendo and Universal are also in a unique position to make money from both Donkey Kong and King Kong at the same time. At least for now, we expect that this movie is being planned as a spinoff of the Super Mario Brothers Movie and help establish a universe for Nintendo and Universal to build up just for the Mario IP. But we’re sure this thought has crossed everyone’s minds in that studio, and we think there’s a few really entertaining things they can do there.
