A place for those who "Trust the Fungus"

Newspaper references

Chicago Tribune

Mario's Great Challenge: Despite Fearsome Odds And Galling Setbacks, It Appears The Movie Will Actually Come Out

November 05, 1992 by Richard Stayton

Notes: An incredibly telling article published before the movie even came out. Includes comments from Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis Hopper as well as producer Roland Joffe and others involved in the production on just about everything. Look for information on how Roland acquired the rights from Nintendo, which actors they sought out for the roles of Mario and Koopa, and funny stories about what went on on-set.
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Los Angeles Times

Discovering Spunk

March 29, 1992 by Jerry Hicks and Sheila Kern

Notes: A notice for a casting call seeking an actress for the role of Daisy, including a quote from Mali Finn (the casting director) on what type of girl they're looking for. Hint: one with "spunkiness."
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The Bros. Mario Get Super Large: Take the world's most popular video game, add $40 million, some Koopa Troopa turtles, two rewrite-happy directors and outspoken actors like Dennis Hopper and Bob Hoskins, then mix together in a deserted cement factory . . .

August 16, 1992 by Richard Stayton

Notes: An extended version of the above Chicago Tribune Article "Mario's Great Challenge" by the same writer. Features further stories and expanded quotes. A much better read, though certainly different enough that both warrant a read.
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The Baltimore Sun

'Super Mario Brothers' will go from TV screen to the big screen at Christmas

August 16, 1992 by Michael Specter

Notes: A general overview of the upcoming film, though the second page features a wonderful quote from Beth Rubino, the set decorator, on the look they were going for with Dinohattan.

Magazine references

Markee Magazine

Markee Magazine - June 1993 - Pg. 26 - The Making Of "Super Mario Bros.": It Ain't No Game!

Notes: An article written by Tyme (alias) that was published in Markee Magazine in June 1993 (though the page says published and copyrighted 1992). The article details the pre-production of the movie, specifically the conversion of the cement factory into a workable set. A PDF scan of the original article can be found at the bottom of the page.
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Time Magazine

http://www.4colorrebellion.com/media/pics/jun/time_chart.jpg

Notes: Not sure of the exact specifics of this reference, other than it appeared in Time magazine.
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Nintendo Power

Nintendo Power - August 1993, Vol. 51, Pg. 111 - Pak Watch Update

Notes: Not necessarily a reference, but the film's logo is visible on display in one of the screen shots
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"May '93 --> The Bros. hit the big screen when
Super Mario Bros. movie, starring Bob
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Hoskins, opens
nationwide."

Nintendo Power - July 1998, Vol. 110, Pg. 80 - 10-Year Anniversary spread

Notes: The movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" has no question mark at the end, despite popular belief. This makes this a (sic).
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"SUPER MOVIE-O BROS.
Every time the Super Mario
Bros. movie gets mentioned
in Nintendo Power, you insult
it. Every single time! I
know—I've been keeping
count. I like that movie; there-
fore, I would like your maga-
zine to say one good thing
about Super Mario Bros. If you
would say one good thing,
just one good thing, I would
feel better.

Jacob
Via the Internet

[NP's Response:] Well, it's only 97 minutes
long. That's a good thing."

Nintendo Power - January 2001, Vol. 149, Pg. 10 - Player's Pulse

Notes: Inspired me to make this thread. Someone defending the SMB movie... Must be one of us!
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Electronic Gaming Monthly

Electronic Gaming Monthly - March 1993, Vol. 6, Issue 49, Pg. 6 - Contents

Electronic Gaming Monthly - March 1993, Vol. 6, Issue 49, Pg. 151 - Movies

Notes: The first scan is of the Contents page that mentions the actual blurb found on the second scan.
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GamePro

GamePro - January 1993, Vol. 42, Pg. 229 - Mario Goes to the Movies

GamePro - June 1993, Vol. 47, Pg. 6 - Full-page advertisement

GamePro - August 1993, Vol. 49, Pg. 57 - Summer CES Snapshots!

Notes: A Goomba is shown at the top-right corner, and appears to be holding a Yoshi figure.
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(Credit goes to RetroMags and the individual scanners that devoted their time to provide these magazines that helped find these references. )

Hey, this is a great idea. If anyone gets a new reference, type/scan it and make sure to get down the issue number, page number, etc. as this would make a great special for the site.

haha on the topic of Nintendo Power, I was trying to buy the old issue that talked about the movie. If you watch the Angry Video Game Nerd's Nintendo Power vid he talks about it and it had an article on the movie. I could make out in the article it said "Next month Mario hits the big screen etc or whatever" which I guess would put it at the April 93 issue? Does anyone have that one? I think it has Star Fox on the cover.

I was trying to confirm before I bought one but the issue summaries really didn't say other than what games it covered.

Yes, NP did have a SMB Movie special. I have the issue, I'll try to find it and get you the actual issue number.

I was actually going to look through the '93 issues for whatever might have been said about the movie, so glad you're interested.

I updated my first post with another quote, and settled on a format on presenting anything new I add: the exact quote (formatted and colored as printed), followed by the reference information as a hotlink over page scans, and finally any comments I may have. All references will be organized in order of date printed. Hope this helps.

What, no drum rolls or building excitement? Ah well... Here's the May 1993 (Batman Returns cover), Vol. 48, Pg. 74 - 77 spread on the "upcoming" Super Mario Bros. movie. Looking forward to discussion on all the little things that imply either a slightly different movie, or incorrect information! (Hark, anyone? )

Also loving the set and cast photos. Hopefully something on here will make a nice addition to the site. So, without further ado, here's the scans:

hey wow that's awesome!!! thanks so much for posting. I saw some of those pics in B&W in the microchips to moviestars book. Fun to see Hoskins and Leguizamo playing their games

The Nintendo Power behind the scenes was a good read. I've seen that pic of John Lequizamo playing SMW, but just now realised that I have to point out and say, he looks very into letting the game play the title screen itself. Also I notice that they say Hark and not Toad.

What's with all the Gameboys and Nintendos on set? Those pictures are "clearly" photo ops. Bob never even heard of Mario until he was on set, making the movie. Funny how that Super Nintendo is on a cart with the TV facing "away" from John and towards the camera. He's just sitting so...awkward. Obliviously someone from Nintendo or NP started handing out random Gameboys to cast and crew and took a picture with them playing with it.

A Hollywood movie set is so busy and hectic, I couldn't imagine anyone being able to sneak in any Super Mario World between takes. Nice article but those pictures scream photo op! If they're real, I would be surprised.

I thought the very same thing. I'm sure they probably at least tried the games, but I'm not so sure they actually played them any more except for these photo shoots. Still good shots, though.

Good point lol its hard enough trying to see an original Gameboy screen without wearing sunglasses LOL I love the way Leguizamo looks really into Super Mario World and its the title screen.

So, Phlibb, anything you think you can use here?

Oh, most certainly. It'll help keep track of what we have and what we don't. Hopefully we'll get everything worth getting in terms of magazine articles.

I'd like to put up some more references, but unfortunately my collection of magazines has run dry. I know there's at least one more reference in the Nintendo Power issues I own, but I already looked through like three times and couldn't find it. Maybe some day.

I would recommend taking what you can now, since I don't know how long Imageshack will keep it up, but I wouldn't mind re-uploading later.

It would be great to see the Cracked magazine parody!! at some point

GamePro - January 1993, Vol. 42, Pg. 229 - Mario Goes to the Movies

Added to my initial post/list of references. As usual, credit goes to RetroMags for helping me find these scans.

Markee Magazine - June 1993 - Pg. 26 - The Making Of "Super Mario Bros.": It Ain't No Game!

An article written by Tyme (alias) that was published in Markee Magazine in June 1993 (though the page says published and copyrighted 1992). The article details the pre-production of the movie, specifically the conversion of the cement factory into a workable set. A PDF scan of the original article can be found at the bottom of the page.

Oh nice--I had seen that Markee magazine article on the internet before, but they must have just recently added in that PDF of the actual file. It's only the first page though...are the rest on there?

And there's yet another "Damn Phlibbit has stuff but won't get it on the site" moment, in the PDF--that shot of the cement factory, before it was converted?

I have the original, actual photograph. It's pretty big too. And not only that, it's a before/after thing that shows that exact same shot, but after they were done with the set, with David L. Snyder standing on the center of the street. It's freakin' amazing.

I should get that scanned soon...although if I remember correctly, the pictures were really too large to scan...

I don't believe she has the other pages as they're not listed in the site's file directory. I can ask, though.

I've reorganized the purpose of this thread to include all official publications rather than just magazine articles in light of Phlibbit and I finding several newspaper articles published before the film's actual release. You all should check out my main post and read the articles listed under Newspaper References; you won't believe what you'll see! New stories and new statements from cast and crew we've utterly missed the last 17 years!

I remember I had one of those Leonard Martin style "Movie Guides" back in the day, it was by a husband and wife critic (oh, the irony) and they gave it three and a half out of five stars. I think it was, Mick Martin and Marsha Porter's Mega Movie Guide. I stopped reading them when they gave "Fight Club" a 'turkey.' (Zero Stars) That just made me angry. But hey, they liked "Super Mario Bros.," so they can't be all that bad.

Hey. I know I haven't been around for a while, but I saw this scanned manga page on Tumblr and thought I'd post it here.

That's pretty cool! Thanks for posting--glad you're back.

Any clue what that was from or when? Around the time of the movie or something more recent?

pandacommando wrote:Hey. I know I haven't been around for a while, but I saw this scanned manga page on Tumblr and thought I'd post it here.

Was that from SupperMarioBroth? I love that tumblr.

That's a really cool piece of artwork. I would definitely love some context for it. Perhaps there were more pages?

Redstar wrote:That's a really cool piece of artwork. I would definitely love some context for it. Perhaps there were more pages?

There might be, check suppermariobroth.tumblr.com he adds Mario stuff that I never even seen before all the time.

I asked the Tumblr owner for any information on the scan, but he wasn't able to share much:

Sadly I don’t have the original manga, but the person I got this from tells me that it is just a bunch of random drawings alongside other obscure Mario references like Mario Paint, Mario’s Picross, the Satellaview games, Donkey Kong Jr. and Mario Clash. It seems to be just there for the sake of being not a mainstream Mario property. I’m very sorry, but that’s all info I have.

I don't think I've come across this magazine cover before, anyone else seen or own this?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... ink:top:en

It's interesting to note that the issue date is November, 1993 despite the fact the movie came out in May. I figured the media would've stopped covering the film by then.

Wow, I actually have never seen that magazine before.

As for the date question, my guess is it's because the film came out a little later in the UK, from what I remember. And maybe like some comic books, the month stated on the cover may be a few months ahead of when it was actually released.

It could be a later UK release or, as I can assume from some of the text, when the VHS was released here.
The reason I think that is at the bottom of the page it states it is "The Most Popular Video Magazine I Britain", and in the early 90's video meant VHS tapes not movies - bearing in mind internet and video files were largely non-existent here.

There is no reference on Google to it as far as I can see, so this may be the only opportunity to buy and scan it. I've got to see how much I get paid tomorrow and I can check it out then, unless someone else wants to buy and scan it instead. Money is tight for me this time of year.

I get paid on Friday. I can purchase it then if Roareye would allow me to have it shipped to his address.

Dunno if this is in the right thread but I found this on a tumblr. I dunno if it's been on the site either.

That'd be fine, Redstar. I'll Facebook message my address to you

Ohh that Super Scope ad is new. I'll try to get round to adding that to the site.

ultimateemail5000 wrote:Dunno if this is in the right thread but I found this on a tumblr. I dunno if it's been on the site either.

I've seen that advertisement before. I should have a few different versions saved to my computer, actually.

Mario Broth has added mroe movie stuff enjoy.

Wow, that brochure looks awesome! Looks like they got an interior shot of the police car and some specs on it! I'd love to own a copy of this.

Holy hell, that brochure looks like it might, by coincidence, be the one I just ordered. I won't know until it arrives after Christmas, as none of the pictures match. However I've ordered a 24 page colour photographic Japanese movie brochure, and the way the images are arranged seems to match the other page on the auction.

I'll scan in high resolution shots from it, regardless of whether or not it's the same item. Be cool if it was.

SCREENS Nov 1993 Magazine came through;

It's a magazine from a video store. It doesn't appear to be connected to any specific outlet (Blockbusters or other), but I remember this as a generic free publication whenever you went into Blockbusters. It covers lots of "new" releases on VHS, and in many cases states that they are available for rent 1 year before Sky is allowed to show them and 2 years before terrestrial TV channels could show them. Interesting that there was an industry block on those two outlets in such a controlled manner.

Anyway, the information you're after is all available at the bottom of the Media Coverage page on the site here: http://www.smbmovie.com/SMBArchive/media/coverage.htm
You may need to refresh your page to see it.
It's the first on that page to follow the gallery system seen on the Costumes page - all the images are accessed by clicking the image and scrolling through.

I'll add the Behind-The-Scenes photo here of Hoskins and Leguizamo with two Goombas in the lift. It's a nice shot

I like that a lot. I would like to draw that when iget my new laptop charger. Very cool.

The Supper Mario Broth tumblr has posted another piece of artwork featuring the film in manga form: