Nintendo plans to release movies

Shigeru Miyamoto says Nintendo is considering other ways to market the publisher’s household names. This is how Nintendo thinks about releasing films. It fits into a broader view of the role Nintendo wants to play, says Miyamoto.

In an interview with US Fortune, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto elaborates on a comment in the company’s latest quarterly report. In it, the company sets out a new strategy, albeit cautiously: “on Nintendo’s intellectual property, we will take a more active approach in areas outside the gaming business, including producing visual content and trading merchandise for our game characters. “. Speaking to Fortune, Miyamoto is a bit more direct: “When we look at the role Nintendo plays as an entertainment company from a broader perspective, we start to think more and more about how movies would fit in there and so maybe in the future we’ll focus on movies. going to aim”.

It is not known whether Nintendo will make films itself or enter into a collaboration. There have been rumors for some time about a series around Nintendo series The Legend of Zelda. The series would be made by Netflix. It would be a series with real actors. However, Nintendo has consistently denied those rumors. Miyamoto admits that Nintendo has often been approached in the past by companies that wanted to make a film around characters from the console builder’s catalog.

Should the plans become concrete, it would not be the first time Nintendo has been involved in a film. In 1993, it brought Super Mario Bros. out, a movie that completely flopped. After that, the Japanese company abandoned new plans. However, Nintendo has already taken some cautious steps in recent years. In 2012, it gave permission for Bowser, the bad guys from many Mario games, to act in the movie Wreck-it Ralph. Earlier this year, Donkey Kong was featured in the movie Pixels. Mario himself was also featured in Pixels. Where Wreck-it Ralph was very successful, Pixels received less good reviews.