Danica Davidson
April 14, 2023 
After the massive opening weekend success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Rolling Stone interviewed original creator Shigeru Miyamoto and original composer Koji Kondo to talk about what made the movie work.
A lot of credit went to Illumination, the studio they worked with.
“Our encounter with Chris [Meledandri of Illumination] was an interesting one in that, as we got to know each other, we realized that our philosophies and the way we think about creating something new is very similar,” said Miyamoto. “We thought that this would be a great match and decided, let’s work together to create something new. And it was just this kind of joint forces of these two different creatives, and then we finally decided on creating a new movie and since then, it’s been a smooth sailing process from there.”
And it wasn’t just Meledandri they clicked with. “So first of all, in terms of characters, we were very fortunate in the fact that the directors from Illumination, the writer, basically the entire staff was so well-versed and loved Mario,” said Miyamoto. “Actually, they probably know more about it than I do. It was really a process of people dropping in assets like this or making the request: ‘Do you have any assets that are about this thing that I want to reference?’ Things like that.”
Kondo explained how he was involved, saying, “The overall film, of course, from beginning to end, was composed by Brian [Tyler]. We really wanted him to take control of that process. My contribution for him was to provide game music that I thought — a list of game music — that would match with the different scenes that I had seen in the movie. And then Brian took some of those suggestions. And then he added different phrases of music. He took those and added those phrases to the overall score, rearranged things in ways that supported the overall film.”
Rolling Stone also remarked, “So, now Mario’s a movie star. Bowser’s a rock star. Are they ready for their Rolling Stone cover?”
To which Miyamoto responded, “Please, by all means. We’d love it!”
Source: Rolling Stone
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
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