Interview: Shigeru Miyamoto And Koji Kondo Talk The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Following a decade-long period of cross-company planning, Super Mario Bros. Movie is finally out today. Production company Universal Pictures, distributor and animation studio Illumination are involved in the project. Nintendo is the iconic company behind Mario’s creation nearly forty years ago, and this trio includes members of the production teams. Nintendo participated in the film not as a licensee but as a partner of Universal and Illumination. 

Mario creator Shigeru MYAMATO, along with Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri were involved in every step. They had input on the characters and storyline, as well as references to the game. Koji Kondo (who is the composer of many of the Super Mario-inspired songs) was a consultant to the film’s score. 

After last weekend’s premier of Super Mario Bros. Movie in Los Angeles, California, we sat down with Shigeru Miyamoto and Koji Kondo for a rare double interview to hear their thoughts on the movie, talk about the collaboration, and more. Below is the complete transcript.

Comment are you finding the reactions to Super Mario Bros. Movies now that others have seen them?
Koji Kondo: Everyone laughed the right moments. The film was a success because they had exactly the same reactions as we wanted. It was amazing to see so many children enjoying the film!

Shigeru Miyamoto: So, in Japan, this obviously hasn’t aired yet, and so we’ve only been able to show it for people who are involved. Just the way that Japanese culture is, people don’t laugh or emote very much during the movie if it’s enjoyable. You know, they’ll tell us it was very funny and enjoyable afterward. It was our first experience seeing the film with an American audience. We were thrilled to share some of the emotions.

Last weekend’s Los Angeles premiere was attended by Chris Meledandri from Illumination and Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo

What is the difference between the original vision and the finished product?
SM: Vision is a conversation that started between Chris Meledandri (me) and I. Our discussion about how we make things was very similar. So, we felt that by working together, we’ll be able to create something that’s going to work, and that’s how the discussion started. So rather than having a vision of what the movie is like, it was more like the vision was being able to do something creative with Chris, and then that’s how the discussion about the movie started.

It worked great, despite all of that. As the movie takes shape, there’s a lot of complex moving parts that we need to deal with, but I think both Chris and I were really able to work together well with each of our teams, and the teams took some of the feedback and opinions that we had to heart and were able to work really well. It was a great experience overall.

In terms of vision as in content, obviously we want to create something that’s enjoyable, that’s fun. And one of the goals was obviously to make sure that we’re able to create a movie that a lot of fans of gaming and Mario games can really feel satisfied in watching, but at the same time, it’s not going to work if it’s a movie that only core game fans are going to understand, so you have to make it enjoyable and fun for everybody.

So that was the basic principle. There’s a lot of discussion around this that happened. And as we’re creating this, we realized that a lot of the staff at Illumination working on the film were fans themselves. So, there’s a lot of content and Easter eggs that went into the film without us knowing. I think the balance of what’s enjoyable for core game fans and what’s enjoyable for everyone else – I think we struck a good balance there.

And that’s the thing about this movie: There are so many references that stretch all the way back to before even the original Super Mario Bros. and all the way up to things as recent as Bowser’s Fury. It was important to reference the whole series.
SM:We had many people give us as much objective feedback during the production of the screenplay. The feedback we got a lot of times was it’s a screenplay that’s really dynamic. Our perspective was that all we did was line up Mario elements like we would in a movie. We also realized that Mario might have too much content but very few dynamic changes inside the game. That was something we were able learn from and to confirm.

We then add Donkey Kong elements to the movie. So, we were able to demonstrate that you can create something with all the elements. It could even be a Mario Family. It was an exciting learning experience to be able see how it worked to combine all these elements together.

When we’re making a movie and we’re working on the screenplay, I think it’s natural that there’s a tendency or desire to create something new – a new character specifically for this. When that came up – and there was a lot of content that was outside of what we have – and this is something that I also share with other projects or even when we’re working on the theme park – that there’s plenty of assets and content in the Mario world that we can use. So let’s start there, and let’s see what we can use there. We realized that after putting all of that into the movie there’s so much that the Mario world has that we still have leftovers that we weren’t able to use.

Meledandri, Miyamoto and the Super Mario Bros. Movie cast.

What makes Mario so popular?
SM: I think one aspect is that we’ve been close to 40 years developing Mario, and players who have been playing Mario, some of them are 40 years older, and I think that’s one aspect to consider. Another aspect of the game is how it feels. It’s very intuitive in that when you see a hole in the ground, you know to jump over it. When there’s a high place, you want to climb it. That’s something that they tried to recreate using the controller, and then, as they’re playing and as they’re interacting with what’s on-screen with their body, it comes to a point where it’s almost like an illusion that they’re actually doing the actions themselves.

When that intuitive and direct connection happens then, people are encouraged to say, “I want to try this. That’s what I want. I want to challenge this.” And then, through that, they’re rewarded with other gameplay experiences. That feedback it creates, I think that’s the kind of gameplay that Mario is, and this is probably why it can be so appealing to so many different people across both ages, but also across cultures and countries.

It is intuitive. You use your body and instincts to experience a game. But when it comes to movies, it’s a little bit different. What we focused on is really trying to create the illusion that Mario might be someone that might actually exist in the real world, and that’s something that’s a creative endeavor that we discussed, both Chris and I, about how to make that a reality.

Once that came to fruition, I was able to see the movie and recreate the story around that goal of trying to make Mario feel like he’s someone real. While there are fantastical and unreal creatures, that’s the goal we were going for and to see it come to life in the movie, and once it was done, I feel like we were able to get close to that point. It was something that I’m really happy we were able to achieve.

To return to the film’s references, you can see that the soundtracks and compositions of games work well with the movies. How can you explain that?
KK: Well, that’s really all thanks to Brian [Tyler]He is also the film’s music composer. He was originally supposed to perform the whole movie. So we looked at the scenes and created a music list that I felt would complement them. And then I sent that off to Brian, not with any order, like, “Hey, use this” or anything like that, but he was able to take the suggestions and incorporate them into something that became so cinematic, as you described.

The reason we didn’t give specific directions like “Please use this here” is because we wanted to make sure that the music supported the story throughout the movie. I thought that if we dictated which music was used in which scene, it might actually interrupt the story and take the audience away from the movie and go, “Oh, I remember that from this game,” and then lose track of what’s going on on-screen. We didn’t want that to happen. That’s why we didn’t give specific directions to Brian on what music to use in which area.

Brian took the game music that we had shared with him – the game music that he was aware of – and added it in the right places throughout the movie score to enhance the experience for the audience. It was a wonderful arrangement that I think helped support this movie.

SM:We always asked them if we could share the sounds from our games when we worked together on such collaborative projects. This time, I’m sure we provided hundreds of sound effect files for them. There’s a scene where Mario and Toad go through the pipe in the Mushroom Kingdom, and [Tyler] was able to compose music that has bits and pieces and snippets of Nintendo music and sound effects in the score that we felt really fit that perfectly.

We asked Brian, “Do what you’ve got to do. Take all of this, and freely arrange them however you want.” We realized he did great at it, and there was a lot of it. We realized that they would like to hear more of the music as we worked on the film and moved towards the end of the production. The idea was accepted by the directors. Towards the end of movie production we began to use more music and audio cues taken from Nintendo gaming.

KK:Although there’s a lot of visual Easter eggs out there that people love, there are many audio Easter eggs I believe people will be able to catch. It’s something that will get people to watch the movie again and again so that they can try to catch as many of those audio Easter eggs as they possibly can.

Chris Meledandri and Koji Kondo were present at the premier. Brian Tyler and Shigeru Myamoto also attended.

We’ve talked at length about [Miyamoto’s]Collaboration with Chris Meladandri [Kondo’s] collaboration with Brian Tyler on this project, but how has the collaboration between the two of you evolved over the many decades you’ve worked together?
KK: When I entered Nintendo, it’s been 38 years, and we’ve maintained this distance where it’s not too close and not too far.

SM: When there’s work on the Mario series, I would go to Kondo-san and ask, “Can you write one track to this?” and make requests like that. There’s obviously no guidance that I can provide in terms of music to Mr. Kondo, but I am in a position where I can perhaps provide creative guidance to him.

And so over the years, what we really talked about is that when we’re creating music for games, let’s create music that can only be possible in games. For example, let’s make it so this music speeds up when you’re running out of time, or when we’re making Mario Kart, let’s add music or sound effects you really wouldn’t hear in any other racing game. These kinds of innovative ideas must also be created by the game designer.

That’s been something that I’ve been kind of encouraging Mr. Kondo to do, but I don’t know… sometimes he doesn’t speak up, so… [laughs]

KK: [Laughs] That’s not true!

SM: No, but you know, he’s got a career of almost 40 years, so the idea of creating something that is uniquely Nintendo comes naturally to him now.

KK: Even from the very first time I worked on a Mario game, I realized that we’re creating music that elicits real-time interaction – music and sound effects that we didn’t see in other media, like movies or TV. I think from that time, Mr. Miyamoto has continually reminded me that that’s what we’re doing, and I’ve been able to really focus on those areas, and it’s been something that I’ve really enjoyed doing for all of that time.

The last time we saw Mario on the silver screen, it was 30 years ago, with something that I don’t think many people were expecting. Is it possible that the reactions to Super Mario Bros.’s original movie were a factor in why Mario returned to movies three decades later?
SM: No, I don’t think there’s any impact or influence that the old movie had. Although I believe the original movie was well-made, I feel that they licensed the Mario IP, and made it. We were trying to get involved in movies, and producing the film ourselves rather than licensing it. This was about ten years back.

When that decision was made, we were searching for partners, and that’s when we encountered Chris and his team. The challenge is to take the creators of Nintendo and the creators at Illumination, and work together. That’s what the challenge was, and that’s what the difference is.

Videogame movies have been criticized for being bad until recently. Recently, I feel like the quality of videogame adaptations has improved tremendously. The Super Mario Bros. Movie seems to be a prime example. Is there anything you believe has changed?
SM:One thing I believe is that the thought and emotions of those who created them have changed over time. Speaking specifically about this movie, there’s now a set of creators on the movie creative teams that have grown up with and understand Mario. That’s a big point.

On our end, we’re really busy creating games, so on the one side, we kind of feel like, “I’ve got someone else to make the movies because we’re really busy.” But at the same time, it’s really important that the people who understand the important aspects of the game are part of that movie creative team so they have a really deep understanding of the important aspects of what makes the game the game it is, and also they have the skills and know-how to create movies. I think that’s what’s important.

A team that feels the same way as you and has that experience can discuss how to make an amazing movie. It can be tempting to think that if we just follow the steps of the game’s progression, a movie will be made. It’s kind of a naïve way of thinking.

I think it’s really important to make a movie that has interesting drama and then add interesting and important game elements to that to make something great. If we can shift the way we think into creating movies like that, we can kind of do away with the “video game movie” genre and just enjoy good movies.

The voice actors were able to really get to know the characters, and they are so happy to play these characters.

KK:Brian, who was a child on his own piano playing Mario music and looking at Nintendo magazines as an adult, is another good example.

Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan

The Nintendo Switch continues to sell well, and it feels as if the company has had a lot of success lately. You can still buy the Switch, Lego sets and Super Nintendo World. And now, there’s the Super Mario Bros. Movie in theaters. How can you explain the success of Nintendo during this time?
SM:We thought, a decade ago, that Nintendo’s popularity was due to how much fun the games were. For the purpose of making games enjoyable, we made characters. Because of that, we try to avoid setting any unnecessary things like maybe deciding what Mario likes to eat because we didn’t want that to then become a limitation for any future games that we release or create. And so that’s the kind of approach that we’ve been taking.

But really, about ten years ago, people would think that you’ve got to decide between Nintendo and Sega or Sony and Microsoft, and we thought that creating fun games is how we can get people to make the decision to choose Nintendo. But now, people aren’t looking for that. You can find a lot more entertainment options, as well as a lot of items that people would like to own and want to buy.

Within that competitive field that we find ourselves now, our focus has shifted into how can we get people to choose Nintendo as Nintendo and really ask, “Why would people choose Nintendo?” Talking about the Super Nintendo World park, and in the movie as well, to see people’s reaction as enjoying Nintendo as a product – Nintendo as a brand – was something that was really great to see. To make it clear that Nintendo brings safety and is a necessary part of any family’s life, I really wanted to do that. That’s the kind of thing that I’d really like to make sure happens.

Is there any way that Mario’s movie can influence future video games?
SM:We were inspired by movies when we were making games in those days. But now, we’re in kind of uncharted territory for how Nintendo movies may impact and influence Nintendo games. But really, our approach with the integrated hardware and software is something I’m really looking forward to how that will change.

That’s it. Super Mario Bros. MovieAre there other Nintendo games that could make a movie franchise out of this?
SM:As a group, you probably already know about Nintendo Pictures. Whenever we create games, that’s one form of content. And when we create animation, that’s another form of content. The amount of content we create is constantly growing. In terms of announcing or sharing anything, I try to hold off until there’s something really good and enjoyable. So, there’s probably nothing to announce in the near future, so I ask you to put all your focus in this movie currently. [Laughs]

Super Mario Bros. Movie The film is now in theatres Check out this review for more information. Watch our interview with Charlie Day and Chris Pratt here.