It’s Super Mario mania!
With the new “Super Mario” movie making $204 million over the long Easter holiday, it was only a minute before fans would searching for its origins.
They can be found in the 1993 movie, “Super Mario Brothers,” that has long ago fallen into obscurity.
And yet it’s back! The 1993 movie is available on DVD and VHS. And it’s number 1 on Amazon’s list of movie best sellers. (It’s number 12 on Barnes & Noble, but maybe because it’s a dollar more expensive.) The number 2 DVD on Amazon? Advance orders for the new film’s disc.
The original live action film starred Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi in the flesh! The directors were Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton. Leguizamo has openly critical of the new casting with Chris Pratt. Hoskins, one of our great actors, passed away much too soon at 71 nine years ago. He was the brilliant star of movies like “Mona Lisa” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”
On Amazon the seller of the DVD — for five bucks — is Hollywood Pictures, aka Disney, the original studio. It says they’re in stock, so Disney must have more of them, or they’re stamping them out right now.