The Real Reason Nintendo Is Going Hollywood: Shigeru Miyamoto Says Games Fade, Films Endure

Nintendo has been weirdly shy about movies for decades, and then suddenly decided to plant a flag in Hollywood. Now we finally have Shigeru Miyamoto explaining why.

So, what changed?

After the Bob Hoskins-led live-action Super Mario Bros. in 1993 face-planted, Nintendo mostly hit pause on film adaptations. There were exceptions — the Japan-only Animal Crossing anime and the many Pokemon movies — but otherwise it was a long quiet stretch.

Cut to the last few years and it is a total 180. The Super Mario Bros. Movie crushed at the box office in 2023, a sequel is landing next year, and a live-action The Legend of Zelda is slated for 2027. There is also chatter about Donkey Kong and Luigi's Mansion getting their own projects. On top of that, Pikmin just got a new short film. In other words: the floodgates opened.

"Games eventually stop running when newer versions come out, but films remain forever."

That is Miyamoto, speaking to Kyodo News (as relayed by TheGamer), on why Nintendo is suddenly all-in on movies. The logic tracks: as hardware moves on, older games can get stranded, while films live on in formats that are easy to keep watching for decades.

Why that answer is both right and also kind of odd

I get what he is getting at — backwards compatibility is messy and corporate priorities change — but it is a slightly strange stance coming from Nintendo specifically. Plenty of the company’s classics are alive and kicking. The original Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario 64 are still huge with speedrunners, and both are playable on Switch 2. You can play some version of Super Mario Bros. on almost every piece of Nintendo hardware since the NES (not counting Game Boy, N64, and Virtual Boy).

Yes, Nintendo has done some eyebrow-raising anti-preservation stuff lately — timed releases like Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Super Mario 35 still feel like self-inflicted headaches — but fans are not letting these games vanish, officially or otherwise.

Where Nintendo's movie plan stands

• The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023): massive hit that kicked the door back open.
• Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel: due next year.
• The Legend of Zelda (live-action): targeting 2027.
• Donkey Kong and Luigi's Mansion: being talked about, not officially announced.
• Pikmin: recently got a new short film.

So the motive is simple: films stick around in a way games sometimes do not, and Nintendo wants its worlds to live forever. Even if you can still stomp Goombas on practically every console they have ever made, the company is betting movies will keep Mario and friends evergreen for new audiences long after the current hardware cycle ends.