Photographie du film Super Mario Bros. de 1993, avec ses deux acteurs principaux

Super Mario Bros. (1993): the flop movie turned cult classic

1740 words | Reading time : 8 minute(s)

MovieCinemaBob Hoskins

The very first Hollywood movie based on a video game — and a disaster nobody ever denied. Released on May 28, 1993 in the United States, directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo, the film swaps the Mushroom Kingdom for Dinohattan. This deep dive tells the story of a chaotic shoot, endless rewrites and the curse its leading man owned to the very end.

Released on May 28, 1993 in the United States, Super Mario Bros. — a title identical the world over (Super Mario Bros.) — is the very first live-action Hollywood feature adapted from a video game. Directed by the duo of Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, it assembled, on paper, a prestigious cast.

A resounding critical and commercial fiasco on release, this film long filed among the worst in history has nevertheless become, over the years, a genuine cult object. Here is the story of a nightmarish shoot, a world that betrays the games and a curse its Mario, Bob Hoskins, owned to the very end.

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The first Hollywood movie based on a video game

In the early 1990s, Nintendo is triumphing all over the world with the Super Mario Bros. series on NES and Super NES, and the little mustachioed plumber is already a global icon. Hollywood smells the opportunity and takes on a completely unprecedented gamble: making the first feature film adapted from a video game, distributed by Hollywood Pictures through Buena Vista. At the time, nobody had yet brought a game to the big screen on that scale.

Directing duties go to the British couple Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, who came out of music videos and advertising and were known for creating the TV character Max Headroom. Their dark, satirical, very cyberpunk vision would soon collide head-on with the expectations of a studio dreaming of colorful family entertainment.

On paper, though, the cast has plenty to reassure. The title role goes to Bob Hoskins, the English actor made famous by Who Framed Roger Rabbit, flanked by rising young star John Leguizamo and veteran Dennis Hopper.

  • Bob Hoskins plays Mario Mario, a grumpy plumber from Brooklyn.
  • John Leguizamo plays Luigi Mario, his idealistic younger brother.
  • Dennis Hopper plays President Koopa, the tyrant of Dinohattan.
  • Samantha Mathis is Daisy, heiress of the parallel world.

Dinohattan, a world that betrays the games

Forget the Mushroom Kingdom in all its color, with its lush green hills. The film moves the whole story to Dinohattan, a filthy, neo-industrial dystopian metropolis, a parallel dimension born, according to the script, from a meteorite that once split the world of the dinosaurs from that of humans. You wade through a dark, neon-lit city a million miles from Nintendo's imagery.

As for the big bad, nothing is left of the dragon-turtle from the games. Koopa becomes a humanoid dictator with a reptilian look, presented as a distant descendant of the tyrannosaurus and obsessed with merging the two dimensions to rule over everything. Bowser as players know him never appears on screen.

The nods to the game are unrecognizable at best: the Goombas are towering reptilian henchmen topped by a tiny head, spring-loaded boots replace the famous jumps, and Yoshi boils down to a small, fairly realistic animatronic dinosaur. The gap with the good-natured world of the license is quite simply total, something fans would hold against the film for years.

Concept art of Dinohattan, a dark megacity plastered with signs
Dinohattan: a grimy, cyberpunk megacity, the polar opposite of the Mushroom Kingdom.

A chaotic shoot and endless rewrites

The production, for its part, quickly descends into chaos. Judging the project too dark, too expensive in effects and too far removed from the family audience they were targeting, the producers hire new screenwriters in the middle of the shoot — without warning either the directors or the actors already on board — to rewrite the script day by day and soften it.

On set, those daily rewrites sow constant confusion: the actors sometimes discover their lines only minutes before shooting the scene. Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo would later admit to drinking between takes, simply to endure the toxic atmosphere on set.

The experience is physically punishing too. John Leguizamo is said to have accidentally broken one of Bob Hoskins's fingers by slamming the door of a set vehicle. Hoskins, who performed a good many of his own stunts, would sum up his ordeal with a line that has stayed famous: he was, in his words, "stabbed four times, electrocuted and nearly drowned".

Set model for the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie
Gigantic sets built while the script was being rewritten every week.

Bob Hoskins and the curse he owned

A delicious detail that has since become legendary: Bob Hoskins had no idea Super Mario Bros. was a video game when he took the role. He reportedly found out only long after signing his contract, when the people around him revealed the scale of the phenomenon.

The actor never hid his distaste for the project. In 2007, he called the experience a "nightmare", pointing the finger at a directing couple whose "arrogance had been mistaken for talent", in his words. That set the tone.

In 2011, questioned by the daily paper The Guardian, he drove the point home for good: asked about his worst job, then his greatest disappointment, then what he would change about his life, he answered each time, laconically, "Super Mario Bros." A curse he owned with deadpan humor right up to his death in 2014.

Bob Hoskins, Samantha Mathis and John Leguizamo in the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie
Bob Hoskins, Samantha Mathis and John Leguizamo: a trio that never hid what it thought of the shoot.

A commercial fiasco turned cult object

The numbers are damning. For a budget estimated at between 42 and 48 million dollars, the film brought in only about 38.9 million worldwide: a financial black hole doubled by a scathing critical failure, which would long earn the picture a place on every list of the worst films ever.

And yet. Long cited among the worst films ever made, Super Mario Bros. eventually enjoyed an unexpected second life. Its wild art direction, its improbable tone and its status as a curiosity turned it into a genuine cult movie, kept alive by a community of fans and archivists gathered in particular around the famous "Morton Jankel Cut", a long version unearthed years later.

Above all, this disaster left a lasting scar on Nintendo, which stayed wary of Hollywood for decades and determined to keep creative control over its characters. It would take nearly thirty years, and the 2023 animated film co-produced with the Illumination studio, to see Mario return triumphantly — and this time successfully — to the big screen.

Campaign posters reading
The film's dystopian imagery — right down to Koopa's campaign posters — has become its main cult selling point.

Super Mario Bros. (1993): the movie at a glance

Title Super Mario Bros. (1993)
Directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel
Release (United States) May 28, 1993
Genre Science-fantasy adventure, live action
Main cast Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Samantha Mathis
Estimated budget 42 to 48 million dollars
Worldwide box office About 38.9 million dollars
Legacy A flop on release, now a cult film

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FAQ

  • Is the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie an animated film?
    No. The 1993 one is a live-action film with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. The animated movie, co-produced with Illumination, came out much later, in 2023, and should not be confused with it.
  • Who plays Mario in the 1993 movie?
    British actor Bob Hoskins. Amusingly, he had no idea Super Mario Bros. was a video game when he took the role, and only found out after signing.
  • What is Dinohattan?
    It is the name of the world invented for the film: a dystopian metropolis running parallel to New York, populated by descendants of the dinosaurs and ruled by President Koopa, played by Dennis Hopper.
  • Why is the film considered a failure?
    For a budget of roughly 42 to 48 million dollars, it took only 38.9 million worldwide, on top of disastrous reviews. It regularly appears on lists of the worst films ever made.
  • Did the film delay Mario's return to the big screen?
    Largely, yes. Its failure made Nintendo wary of adaptations and determined to keep creative control. It took nearly thirty years, until the 2023 animated film, for a new feature to arrive.

Beyond the consoles

Films, series, music, theme parks and records: our guide follows Mario everywhere he has stepped outside the games.

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