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Super Mario Bros. producer on Nintendo, sequels and the state of animation
Chris Meledandri is still recovering from shock. His adaptation of the video game Super Mario Bros. has grossed $378 million globally this weekend, the biggest opening of the year. In just five days, it has already grossed more than all but one movie released this year (the new Ant-Man) and set the record for an animated movie.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the greatest hit in a flurry of successful video game adaptations. It is also the latest feather in the cap of Meledandri, who is having one of the more remarkable runs in modern Hollywood history.

The 63-year-old former Fox executive has produced 13 movies since forming his company Illumination in 2007 and only one of those (Hop) was a dud. Several of them, including Despicable Me, Minions and The Secret Life of Pets rank among the most popular animated titles of the century.

Illumination has performed at a similar level to the Disney duo of Pixar and Marvel — with far less fanfare.

I spoke with Meledandri Saturday morning about the movie’s success, the state of animated movies and why his movies don’t get considered art. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

How do the numbers for Mario compare to your expectations?

My mind is a little bit blown. They are beyond my expectations. I’m extremely conservative by nature, but they are beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.

We saw some interesting things over the last 8 months. We were looking at search and the correlation between releasing something connected to the movie that we felt was particularly dynamic and observing the response through search.

As in you drop a trailer and look at Google search volume?

We were doing it with every step. The trailers, the first exposure to a one-sheet, what happened with big paid media moments. If you were just looking at search correlation and comparing that to other massive titles, you would have been less surprised by these results.

Have you always done that?

We’ve been doing it in a more focused way over the last three movies. It keeps getting more and more sophisticated as a tool. Inside of Universal there’s a group run by a guy named Chris Massey who focuses on this.

How did your relationship with Nintendo begin?

[Super Mario Bros. creator Shigeru] Miyamoto and I met in Los Angeles in 2014. A number of people suggested to both of us that we should meet.

Why did people think you should meet?
Unbeknownst to me at the time, there was a conversation inside of Nintendo about wanting to expand opportunities for audiences and fans to have connections with their characters. This was a shift in their internal strategy. Theme parks and movies shot to the top of their list.

People know of my interest in Japan. The first week of the company’s existence, when it was me and my assistant in 2007, I decided to spend in Japan rather than in Los Angeles. I had this fantasy that Illumination would have a more global focus to creating films than any other studio. I decided to start in Japan and meet with Japanese publishers.

What is the origin of your interest in Japan?

I have always been a big fan of the Japanese aesthetic. I have admired how they have integrated that aesthetic into animation and into the creation of popular culture. I have a deep respect for Japanese culture in general. I find their value system to be very pleasing; there’s a strong emphasis on relationships.

Did you talk about projects in that first meeting?

We didn’t; we shared insights into the creative process of making an animated film. Miyamoto-san talked about how they approached making a game. We talked about almost everything but making a project together. It was a couple of years before we were fully engaged and committed.

Did they bring up the live-action Mario movie?

It’s remarkable how little the previous film was discussed. It was not a film they had direct involvement in. They referred to it as a licensed deal.

And were you fine sharing creative control with them? You haven’t really done that before.

Not only was I fine with it, but I felt it was the only way that we would be able to truly make a film that would honor the property in a way that would speak to fans.

I assume you both still had some concerns about working together?

For Nintendo, even though they would be our partners and working closely with us, they were still entrusting us with something that was almost 40 years in the making. They really wanted to understand our sensibility, our process.

For me, the primary question was really a question of how we would be changing our process to incorporate a partner. I’ve got a very strong relationship with our partners at Universal. My dialogue with Donna Langley is clear and established. It integrates into our process and has developed over time. This was really about shifting our pipeline so that we were integrating another point of view.

With Mario, you have many worlds, many beloved characters. How long did it take to crack the story?

The core story work happened over about 16 months. The decision to tell an origin story was not the most original approach, but the decision to do that started to define certain things. There were two core character drivers through the center. One was Mario’s need to save his brother. That is very simple and fundamental. And then there is Bowser’s unrequited love for Peach in what I think is a really fun and unexpected way.

One of the most memorable scenes in the movie is Bowser singing a love song to Peach at the Piano. Was that in the original script?

Animation is so much more of an iterative process than live action. The script is just a living, breathing part of the process. So, no, it wasn’t always there.

Were there any characters you wanted to get in that you didn’t?

Spoiler alert: The character that was most on our mind was Yoshi. I’d say there was more discussion about Yoshi than any other character that didn’t figure prominently in the film.

Given the success of this movie, it seems inevitable you will make a sequel, spinoff or prequel.

I’m not allowed to talk about that right now. Clearly I’ll continue to work with them on the board level and we definitely hope to do more things together.

Hollywood screwed up video game adaptations for many, many years. It now seems to have figured it out. What changed?

There was this industry idea that video games weren’t adaptable IP. Every time I hear one of those statements I shudder a bit.

I’m not familiar enough with how past films worked. I can say with great confidence that we would not have been able to do this without that partnership with Nintendo. One might take from that that the way to make a successful adaptation is to work closely with the creator. I do believe that.

What did they bring to the process?

They were full creative partners in all the decisions, starting with design adaptation. Story. Voice casting. Music. We had many many conversations about how the music and scoring for our movie would reflect and integrate music from the games..

Your company is known for making blockbuster animated movies for a lot less money than some of your peers. How do you pull that off?

It’s a topic that I’ve become somewhat tired of because to me what is extraordinary is the artistry that is in these movies. It’s one aspect of our films that is often overlooked because more focus is on their success.

Do you ever feel you get less credit for art than, say, Disney and Pixar?

I wouldn’t say it in comparison to anybody else. But I would say that the artistic brilliance that is in our movies is often overlooked.

Why is that?

It’s been overshadowed by the focus on our commercial track record. That’s been more interesting for people to write about.

You make one or two movies a year. Do you have ambitions to do more? Maybe make TV shows or video games?

[Despicable Me director] Pierre Coffin has been working on two series of shorts. In May we’re going to start with the first series. We’ve done four episodes of a series called Who’s Who, which is a spinoff of the Minions. And then he has a wholly original series we’re working on as well.

We’ve done over 20 collaborations with Universal theme parks. We’re working on one right now including 20 minutes of original animation. We have a group inside the company that has collaborated closely on all of those attractions.

Since you started Illumination, Universal has built up a big animation business. It bought DreamWorks Animation. I sense they would be happy for you to take on a bigger role in those projects as well. Why not?

I’m most interested in making things. I’m less interested in running things than I am in making things. But I have a growing team inside of Illumination that is increasingly more capable to take on projects on their own with a different kind of guidance from me.

I’m incredibly fortunate to have the relationship with Universal and Comcast. They give me support to literally do whatever I wanna do. I have this incredibly unique place they encourage me to take risks.

Speaking of risks, what is the next big technology that will transform your business?

The whole world has to be thinking about how artificial intelligence will integrate into various aspects of our businesses and societies.

There are companies outside of entertainment that are creative-based companies that are using Dali to create imagery for presentations when a few years ago they might have hired illustrators. There is a tremendous amount of experimentation that I hear about anecdotally every day. Maybe in the creative space we thought that AI would move around us and not come after our space. But it’s a wave that is coming. You have to think about it as another tool.

So it’s got more potential for your business than the metaverse?

The impact of AI to our culture, our way of life, has massively more potential than the impact of the metaverse. That’s more of a comment about AI than the metaverse.

You and I got lunch in early 2022 and you were worried about the state of the movie business and animation in particular. Encanto had just become a huge hit, but only after it got to streaming. Sing 2 had come in a bit below your expectations. Now you have the biggest movie of your career. How are you feeling about the state of animation?

I still feel like we’re undergoing transformation as it relates to how audiences view movies. What we’re seeing is that with the bigger movies where there is tremendous excitement, there is a strong desire to come out and be part of that cultural event.

But Sing was a good example where we came out the weekend omicron arrived or was recognized in the US. Our box office was about 50% of what I anticipated it would have been in a marketplace it wasn’t impaired.

And then it went on to be the No. 3 most streamed movie of 2022. Different movies will be experienced in different ways. The most challenging part of the business I see right now is with original titles and getting audiences back in the theater for original titles. That’s where I think we need to do a lot of our work. We’re going to continue to make those films alongside the sequels and occasional adaptations of a property like Mario.

TikTok played a huge role in the success of Minions 2. How much of that was organic as opposed to contrived? How much credit can you take for that viral moment?

You can never take credit for something that happens organically like the Gentleminions and the viral wave that occurred. But you can begin to shift how you engage your audience.

Would you make any movies for streaming-only?

I would not rule that out. We are a motion picture company focused on making movies for theaters. That is our core. But I wouldn’t rule out making something that is original for a streaming platform. In the same way I wouldn’t rule out making a traditional TV series.

A lot of animated movies got dropped on streaming during the pandemic. Did that deter families from going to theaters?

The more dynamic in-home viewing becomes, the greater competition it becomes for going to cinemas. It’s undeniable that in-home viewing affects theatrical attendance. Look at the trends over time. But there are qualities of going to a cinema that can’t be achieved in the home.

We used to look at our business through the lens of the theatrical box office; everything was geared towards theatrical. The reality today is our films are being experienced in home as well as in theaters. The two can exist and thrive side-by-side.

So how are you going to celebrate?

We’re headed to Japan, to Kyoto, on Monday. I am saving the celebration for when I get together with Miyamoto-san in Kyoto.

Eres Tu Homo?

Si, yo soy gay. Muy, muy gay.

I kinda thought the mario movie was going to make money but not this massive amount.

it's a good film

i would watch it again

Hey argo — Kelly Reichert on WTF last Thursday