The “Super Mario Bros” animated movie has set a voice cast that will include Chris Pratt and Charlie Day as Mario and Luigi.
Nintendo announced the full cast today as part of their #NintendoDirect event, and it also includes Anya Taylor-Joy, Keegan-Michael Key, Jack Black, Seth Rogen, Fred Armisen, Kevin Michael Richardson, Sebastian Maniscalco and special cameos from Charles Martinet, who is the original voice of Mario, Luigi, Wario and more.
Pratt and Day will play the title characters Mario and Luigi, the two heroic plumbers who must make their way through the Mushroom Kingdom and rescue Princess Peach (Taylor-Joy) from the evil Lord Bowser (Black). Among the other key cast, Key is playing Toad and Rogen is playing Donkey Kong.
The “Super Mario Bros.” movie arrives in theaters on December 21, 2022, from Universal, Nintendo and Illumination Animation, which is behind the “Despicable Me” and “Minions” movies.
Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic (“Teen Titans Go! To the Movies”) are directing, and Matthew Fogel (“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part,” “Minions: The Rise of Gru”) wrote the script.
Chris Meledandri is producing “Super Mario Bros” for Illumination, as is Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo.
“Mario and Luigi are two of the most beloved heroes in all of popular culture, and we are honored to have the unique opportunity to work so closely with Shigeru Miyamoto and the widely imaginative team at Nintendo to bring these characters to life in an animated movie, unlike any film Illumination has made to date,” Chris Meledandri, Illumination’s founder and CEO, and outside director of Nintendo, said in a statement.
“We are collaborating with Chris and his experienced team to not just create a character licensed film, but a new piece of entertainment which brings Super Mario Bros to life on the screen, and allows everyone to enjoy whether or not they know about the game. The production so far is constructive and going very well, and both parties are learning a lot from each other. We humbly ask that fans wait just a little longer for the premiere, and we hope they look forward to seeing the unique characters from Super Mario Bros on the big screen,” Shigeru Miyamoto, representative director and fellow of Nintendo, said in a statement.
See the full cast announcement below: