What if Martin Scorsese directed a Super Mario Bros. movie?
A cartoon imagines what a Super Mario Bros. film would look like helmed by the director of "Goodfellas" and "Casino." Spoiler: It's loads better than the actual "Super Mario Bros." movie.
Hollywood owes us a Super Mario Bros. movie. Actually, let me be more specific. Hollywood owes us a good Super Mario Bros. movie.
Yes, a major movie studio produced a Super Mario Bros. movie back in 1993. It starred John Leguizamo and the late Bob Hoskins as two Brooklyn plumbers who dress like Mario and Luigi. However, the film had almost nothing to do with the world that game designer Shigeru Miyamoto created for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. This mediocre attempt to capitalize on one of the greatest video game franchises of all time is burned onto my brain like a brand from a cattle rancher.
The next time Hollywood attempts to make a Super Mario Bros. movie, it should at least try to hedge its bets and hire a director with some serious credentials, like the legendary Martin Scorsese. Fox's "Animation Domination High-Def" cartoon series imagined how Scorsese would helm a big-budget movie about gaming's most famous plumber brothers.
The video, posted Monday, is almost a mirror parody of Scorsese's gangster classic "Goodfellas," starring Yoshi in the role of Henry Hill, who hangs around with a powerful crew of mobsters including a hot-tempered Mario, an older but more loyal Luigi and "the boss" in the form of Princess Peach.
Who says that Mario and Luigi need a fire-flower to take out those pesky Goombas?
The "heroes" in this Mario Bros. universe spend a lot of time gathering coins and 1ups by any means necessary. That includes committing felonies by roughing up enemies in ways that involve a lot more than just jumping on their heads. When you think about it, jumping on someone's head is already pretty violent. All this time, we've been playing the 8-bit equivalent of a "Saw" movie.
Even if this is a joke, there might already be a Super Mario Bros. movie in the works, which Scorsese could take over.
During the big Sony email hack of 2014, leaked emails revealed that Sony Pictures was working on getting another Super Mario Bros. film off the ground. According to Buzzfeed, former studio chief Amy Pascal corresponded with Avi Arad, who produced several comic book movies including "The Incredible Hulk," "Iron Man" and all of the "Spider-Man" and "Amazing Spider-Man" movies so far. Pascal confirmed that Arad traveled to Japan to meet with "his Nintendo guy" and Arad later confirmed to Buzzfeed that his talks with Nintendo were "just the beginning."
Warning: Since this is a Scorsese parody, this video has more than the average amount of bloody violence and NSFW words. Well, maybe not as much as if Scorsese actually made a full-length Mario film.