In a recent interview with Variety, Illumination founder and CEO, as well as co-producer of the upcoming animated Mario movie, Chris Melendandri, mentioned that the film is nearly “three-quarters” complete.
The company’s untitled Mario movie is supposedly 75 percent completed, according to Melendandri, and will be hitting theaters next year, which will feature the very controversial choice of Chris Pratt as the voice of the titular Mario himself.
Other than stating that the majority of the movie has been completed, Meledandri commented on Chris Pratt’s amazing performance as Mario, and that he truly loved what Pratt brought to the table.
“Chris was cast because we felt he could give a great performance as Mario. And now that we’ve done about 15 recording sessions, and the movie is three-quarters done, I sit here and say that I love his performance as Mario,” Meledandri said to Variety. He continued to say that since Pratt has “Italian American heritage, he could make that (casting) decision without worrying about offending Italians or Italian Americans.”
Meledandri goes on to say that he thinks the film will do just fine, especially because of Pratt’s supposedly strong performance.
Earlier, the film was said to release on Dec. 21, 2022. Two months ago, however, Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo announced through Nintendo of America’s Twitter handle that the film would be pushed back to Spring 2023, April to be exact.
In the beginning stages of the film, fans of the long-standing iconic Mario franchise were astonished to learn that the original voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, was pushed aside for Chris Pratt. Co-producer Meledandri defended this casting choice back then, however, and continues to defend Pratt today, saying that the Guardians of the Galaxy star is doing phenomenal as the voice of Mario.
