Nintendo Announces Mario Movie with Illumination Entertainment

There’s not much to this news so let’s keep it brief.

Last we heard regarding the oft-rumored Super Mario movie, the most popular rumor circulating was that Nintendo was likely going to partner up with Minions creator Illumination Entertainment to create what would most likely be a CGI children’s movie starring our favorite Mushroom Kingdom Hero.

And that rumor was just confirmed over Twitter: Illumination and Nintendo will be working together to create a Mario movie, which will be co-produced by Shigeru Miyamoto and Chris Meledandri.

While we know literally no other details beyond that, it doesn’t look promising. One might hope that Shigeru Miyamoto would ensure a certain level of quality would be met, but Chris’s movie background, which spans between Hop, The Lorax, Despicable Me 2 and 3, and others, doesn’t include much in the way of exceptional children’s programming. Nothing that would rival celebrated studios like Pixar and Disney, in any case.

I’m not holding my breath on this, but then, I think it’s pretty obvious at this stage (between making a Detective Pikachu movie and partnering with Illumination) that Nintendo isn’t making these movies for the old fans: they’re making them for the kids. And hey, it’s hard to fault them for that.