With a rousing voice cast, one of the most engaging, colorful canons in the entirety of fiction, and a limit beyond the sky as far as fan service potential goes, The Super Mario Bros. Movie didn’t need something as silly as a plot to dominate the box office this past weekend. With $377 million in the bank against a $100 million production budget, Nintendo and Illumination will be eating well for a hot minute yet.
Illumination apparently foresaw such an outcome as well, having been bold enough to toss in a post-credits scene that all but points to sequel intentions, and with the Mario movie having only just scratched the surface of what this world has to offer, it would be no difficult task to craft a follow-up with twice the candy coating boasted by the opener.
The method, of course, would involve bringing in even more characters from the Nintendo’s library, and few jump to mind quicker than Wario and Waluigi, the yellow and purple-clad foils to the titular brothers who could learn a thing or two about proper nutrition.
With such appearances well-established in many an imagination, it didn’t take long for the fan-casting to begin, which led one Twitter user to a pair of actors that, together, form an abomination that’s a bit too perfect.
Indeed, where the Mario film’s thinly plotted circus attraction more than works in favor of the kids, the interest of the older viewers seems to rest solely on the voice cast, whether it’s out of genuine interest for the work they’ll do (Anya Taylor-Joy), the memes (Chris Pratt), or some combination of the two (Jack Black). All this to say, no pair of voice actors would contribute to this triad of interest points better than Danny DeVito and Willem Dafoe, and responders seem to agree.
That’s not to say that Black wasn’t on to something when he pitched Pedro Pascal for the voice of Wario, but if DeVito and Dafoe are merely the starting point for fan-casting the Nintendo Cinematic Universe, well, we think that sentence speaks for itself.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is now playing in theaters.