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Nintendo Acquires Animation Studio, Will Rename It Nintendo Pictures

Expect to see more visual content from the maker of Super Mario Bros.

Marcos Cabello
Based in Boston, Marcos Cabello has been a personal finance reporter for NextAdvisor and CNET. Marcos has covered cryptocurrency, investing, banking, and the US economy, among other personal finance subjects. If you don't find Marcos behind his computer screen, you'll probably find him behind another screen, playing the newest Nintendo Switch title, streaming the latest TV show or reading a book on his Kindle.
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Marcos Cabello
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Nintendo

Nintendo takes the jump into animation with its new acquisition.

 Sarah Tew/CNET

Nintendo has acquired Japanese animation studio Dynamo Pictures, the gaming giant said Thursday. The maker of Super Mario Bros. and other iconic titles plans to change Dynamo's name to Nintendo Pictures and says it expects the deal to close on Oct. 3.

It's not entirely clear what Nintendo might have in mind, or what may already be in the works, but the company said in its statement that it's looking to "strengthen the planning and production structure of visual content in the Nintendo group." Dynamo Pictures previously worked with Nintendo on a series of Pikmin short movies, which were released on YouTube back in 2020.

The acquisition comes ahead of the Super Mario Bros. Movie, starring Chris Pratt, which has been delayed until April 2023. Moreover, Legendary is already working on a sequel to the flick Detective Pikachu, which met with surprising success in 2019.

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Media franchises are ever-expanding these days, turning films and TV shows into video games, and vice versa. Even older video game franchises are being revived in some form of visual media, ensuring the intellectual property doesn't lose its luster.

Take Cuphead, for instance, a critically acclaimed video game originally released in 2017. After five years of dormancy, the game got a Netflix animated show (not to mention the recently released downloadable content for the game). A sequel season for Cuphead's Netflix show is already on the way. 

Recent intellectual property acquisitions are much more than just buying a single product: Multimedia projects stemming from a line of IP are extremely popular for fans deep into the lore of the franchises they love. 

With Nintendo's acquisition, we can expect to see more of Nintendo's most iconic IP -- Mario, Kirby, Metroid, Donkey Kong -- go from 2D and 3D playable adventures to consumable movies and TV shows, expanding the company's franchises toward ever-growing horizons.