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Chris Pratt voices Mario in the upcoming The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and one of the directors has now commented on why Pratt was the right choice to play the lead character.
Co-director Aaron Horvath told Total Film that the movie tells the story of how Mario becomes Super Mario, and that the film picks up with Mario and Luigi as regular “blue-collar guys” from Brooklyn trying to have a career in the plumbing business. Casting Pratt as Mario “made total sense,” Horvath said, because Pratt is known for playing the role of a regular guy who becomes a hero.
“He’s really good at playing a blue-collar hero with a ton of heart. For the way that Mario is characterized in our film, he’s perfect for it,” Horvath said.
Pratt voiced one of the leads, an unlikely hero named Emmet, in 2014’s The Lego Movie. He also played a regular blue-collar guy in the TV show Parks and Recreation. His Guardians of the Galaxy character, Peter Quill, is also a little aloof and goofy but also definitely a hero.
Pratt’s casting as Mario was met with some criticism, with some people believing Mario’s voice actor from the video games, Charles Martinet, should have gotten the role.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is set for release on April 5 and the final trailer will be released during a special Nintendo Direct on March 9. In addition to Pratt as Mario, Peach is played by Anya Taylor-Joy. The rest of the cast includes Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Jack Black as Bowser, and Charlie Day as Luigi.
The animated film is produced by Illumination, the company behind the Despicable Me and Minions franchise, and is directed by Horvath and Michael Jelenic. The screenplay was written by The Lego Movie 2’s Matthew Fogel. Shigeru Miyamoto, who created Mario, is a producer on the film.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is expected to do big business at the box office. The highest-grossing video game movie of all time is Warcraft with about $440 million worldwide. For more, check out GameSpot’s rundown of the highest-grossing video game movies of all time.
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