Because of the Easter holiday weekend, The Super Mario Bros. Movie jumps into theaters Wednesday. Inspired by the video game phenomenon, Chris Pratt voices Mario and Always Sunny‘s Charlie Day his brother Luigi, who team up to fight the minions of the evil Bowser (Jack Black).
Speaking of Easter, the movie is chock-full of Easter eggs for video game fans and features an all-star cast, including Golden Globe winner Anya Taylor-Joy playing Mario’s love, Princess Peach. Seth Rogen voices Donkey Kong, Keegan-Michael Key voices Toad, and Fred Armisen is Cranky Kong.
Black tells ABC Audio he’s finally made it as an actor playing the King of the Koopas. “You know, a lot of actors, their dream is to play Hamlet because that’s the most iconic of all the characters you can play: Shakespeare‘s finest moment as a writer. A lot of actors are like, ‘Oh, I just really want to play Batman,’ you know? Bowser, to me, trumps them all.”
He adds, “It’s the greatest villain in video game history. I got to play Bowser, dude! I could just mic drop and call it a career. I might!” Jack enthuses before poo-pooing the other choices: “Hamlet. Batman. I’m Bowser, baby!”
Rogen had another goal in mind: to make fans forget 1993’s widely panned movie adaptation starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo.
Seth explained, “These games … were like a huge part of my childhood, you know? I remember when I was a kid how excited I was for a Mario Brothers movie to come out, and then it sucked. And so it’s nice — it’s exciting to potentially create the movie that I wish I saw when I was 11 years old and instead of got what I got.”
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