Production Hell - Super Mario Bros

Recap

The video tells the story of how the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie turned a bright, simple platform game into a dark cyberpunk adventure—and how its troubled production became almost as bizarre as the film itself.

With Nintendo riding high, producer Ronald Joffé secured the rights, but the project lurched through competing scripts and creative directions. One draft was described as an existential journey and mockingly nicknamed “The Sewer Man.” Directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel eventually pitched a bleak parallel world of evolved dinosaurs, drawing on the look of Batman. The video jokes that this was a long way from “Snow White and the Seven Dinosaurs”—and not necessarily an improvement.

Casting had its own near-misses: Danny DeVito reportedly passed on playing Mario, Tom Hanks was considered for Luigi before John Leguizamo got the role, and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Keaton declined the villain role that went to Dennis Hopper. Then Disney pushed for a more family-friendly movie, and the directors discovered that the script had been rewritten shortly before filming. Their workaround was to shoot scenes from both versions and hope the edit could sort things out.

It couldn’t. The shoot ran long, the budget climbed toward $50 million, and the crew grew frustrated with the directors. Bob Hoskins and Leguizamo reportedly drank between takes to endure the chaos. Hoskins broke a finger in a door accident; the cast was painted pink to resemble a giant sausage finger. He also faced dangerous props and was reportedly electrocuted by faulty wiring at the makeshift set.

Hopper’s breaking point came when he received another rewritten script just before a scene. He launched into a lengthy tirade at the directors, continued raging in his trailer, and eventually performed the scene simply to get filming moving again. Later, he called the production a nightmare and complained that a planned five-week job had stretched to 17.

After the shoot, Morton and Jankel were fired and shut out of editing and reshoots. The film opened at number four, quickly faded, and earned less than its reported $49 million budget. Reviews were brutal, fans were angry, and Nintendo distanced itself from the movie. The narrator questions whether the directors deserved all the blame, given how much the project was changed around them.

The closing punchline is Hopper’s story about his son asking why he played King Koopa in such an awful movie. Hopper said he did it so his son could have shoes; his son replied that he didn’t need shoes that badly.

Personalities discussed

• The Critical Drinker (narrator)
• Bob Hoskins
• John Leguizamo
• Dennis Hopper
• Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel
• Ronald Joffé
• Barry Morrow
• Danny DeVito, Tom Hanks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Michael Keaton
• Samantha Mathis