SUPER MARIO BROS. Director Says He Wanted Danny DeVito as Mario

Ricky Morton, the director of the horrid Super Mario Bros. film, said Bob Hoskins was not always the choice for the role of Mario, and that they originally wanted Danny DeVito in the role! His story (which he shared with scifinow) is rather anticlimactic:

Well, Danny DeVito turned us down. Mario was the main character in the cast, and Bob was available. It was basically about availability. There are all these stories about the way people are cast but it’s normally about availability…

The film would go on to be a light smear on the otherwise illustrious career of Hoskins, but I can't help but wonder what, if anything, it would've done to DeVito. Side note: how often would you have heard "we settled for Bob Hoskins because DeVito wasn't available," in Hollywood back then?

Part of me thinks the film would've been better with DeVito, at least comedy-wise. The script was still terrible...and to think we almost had a sequel!