Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto is currently working on his first animated film, in collaboration with Chris Meledandri and his company Illumination (makers of the Despicable Me franchise).
But he’s been thinking about making animated movies for years. He said in a recent investors Q&A session in Japan:
I’ve been considering an animated film for many years now. There has long been talk that Nintendo could make a movie because “making a game is like making a movie.” But they are completely different to me. Interactive experiences are completely different from non-interactive media, and to make a movie I want a film expert to do the work. Thinking that way, I have talked with all sorts of different movie directors and producers, and eventually I was introduced to Illumination via Universal, with whom we are developing theme park attractions.
He also spoke about his collaboration with Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri:
“We’ve talked together and share the feeling that if we can’t make something interesting we’ll just call it quits. But we’ve already met a number of times to hash out the screenplay, our talks together are progressing, and I hope to make an announcement once we’ve ironed out some things like the schedule.”
The animated Mario movie they are working on is expected to be released in 2020.
