Super Mario Bros., the 1993 film, paved the way video game movies for all time to come. Namely, that everyone would expect them to be terrible. It opened 20 years ago on Tuesday, and John Leguizamo, who starred as Luigi, had the grace and good humour to record this message for a Super Mario Bros. film fansite.
“I’m glad people appreciate the movie,” he says. “It was the first, nobody had ever done it before.” By that he means a cinematic video game adaptation and if he’s not right, my memory can’t produce the example where he is wrong. “We made a lot of great things and we made a lot of mistakes.”
Nearly every actor on the project hated it, few more than Bob Hoskins, who starred as Mario, calling it his worst job, biggest disappointment, and the one thing in his past he’d change. Leguizamo, in his biography, expressed dissatisfaction with his role and with the films direction.
It’s nice that, 20 years later, he can put the bad feelings behind him and record this kind message — which gives credit to everyone in the cast — for a fansite devoted to the film. That said, I wouldn’t ask him to sign an autograph using the name Luigi.
John Leguizamo’s 20th Anniversary Message [Super Mario Bros.: The Movie Archive]
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