Super Mario Bros Movie star Seth Rogen hits out at infamous 1993 adaptation

‘It’s nice to know that 11-year-olds out there won’t be disappointed in the same way that I was,’ Rogen said of his movie

Seth Rogen hopes that The Super Mario Bros Movie will finally lay the ghost of the infamous 1993 adaptation to rest.

The comedy star voices Donkey Kong in the new animated adaptation of the popular Nintendo game alongside Chris Pratt as the titular Italian plumber.

1993’s Super Mario Bros: The Movie represented the first live-action adaptation of a video game to film and starred John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins as brothers Luigi and Mario, respectively.

“When I was 11, I saw the original Mario Bros movie and I was so excited,” Rogen told Variety at the new film’s premiere.

“But it’s one of the worst films ever made. I was so disappointed. I think it made me realise that movies, like, could be bad. That never occurred to me until that moment.”

“It really bummed me out,” he continued. “It’s nice to vindicate that moment. It’s nice to know that 11-year-olds out there won’t be disappointed in the same way that I was.”

Super Mario Bros: The Movie was a critical and financial failure, earning just $38.9m (£31.2m) worldwide against a budget of $42–48m (£34–39m). On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of just 28 per cent and is regularly included on lists of the worst movies of all time.

Seth Rogen (left) and John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins in ‘Super Mario Bros: The Movie’ (Getty Images/Allstar/Cinetext/Allied Filmmakers)

Hoskins referred to the film as “the worst thing I ever did” in a 2007 interview with The Guardian. “It was a f***ing nightmare. The whole experience was a nightmare,” he said.

However, Leguizamo recently defended the movie while criticising the casting of Pratt and his Luigi, Charlie Day.

“A lot of people love the original. I did Comic-Con in New York and in Baltimore, and everyone’s like, ‘No, no, we love the old one, the original.’ They’re not feeling the new one.’ I’m not bitter. It’s unfortunate,” he said.

“For them to go backwards and not cast another [Latin actor] kind of sucks.”

After Pratt’s casting as the character was announced, Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri, who is producing the film, promised that Pratt’s role as the character would not offend Italians.

Pratt recently said that he “totally gets” the backlash to his casting but was confident that the movie would win critics over.

The Super Mario Bros Movie will be released on 7 April 2023.