How Glen Powell and Donald Glover Chased Their Nintendo Roles in THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE
Fans already had plenty to be excited about with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, but the lead-up to its release delivered a couple of genuinely awesome surprises. Donald Glover stepping in as Yoshi and Glen Powell taking on Fox McCloud, and the casting was the result of two actors going out of their way to make it happen.
After the massive success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which pulled in over $1.3 billion worldwide, Illumination suddenly had Hollywood knocking at its door. According to Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri, some of those calls stood out in a big way.
“When we were working on the first movie, we began to get phone calls from actors,” Meledandri told Forbes. “They started communicating their enthusiasm. After the first movie was done, there were two phone calls that came from actors expressing incredible conviction and passion about being involved with Nintendo, and one of them was from Glen Powell.
“He explained that we had to understand how deeply he loved the character of Fox McCloud. His dream was one day to be part of a ‘Star Fox’ movie. I’m listening to this going, ‘He has no idea that Miyamoto-san and I are talking about Star Fox being in this new movie,’ and Glen is expressing this passion for this.”
That timing couldn’t have been more perfect. While Powell was making his case, Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto and the Illumination team were already discussing how to expand the universe by bringing in Star Fox elements. It wasn’t an easy sell internally at Nintendo, though.
“When I got the proposal from Chris about including ‘Star Fox,’ in general, from Nintendo’s perspective, we tend to avoid mixing IPs,” Miyamoto said. “With that said, though, as the creator of Star Fox and this movie taking place in space, I felt that I wanted to see that.
“I wanted to see what it would be like, but I also felt that there may be significant resistance internally about that idea, so after I got this proposal, I contacted the necessary parties involved and started my lobbying activity here at Nintendo.
“I was surprised to find that a lot of people saw a lot of potential with it and were really excited to see what would come out of this.”
That internal push paid off, and Powell’s enthusiasm suddenly looked like it was meant to be. Fox McCloud, a staple of the Star Fox franchise and a fan-favorite from Super Smash Bros., is now officially part of Mario’s cinematic world.
And Powell wasn’t the only one making calls. “The other actor who called after seeing the first movie was Donald Glover, and he was like, ‘I need to be involved, if there’s any way with a Nintendo movie,’” Meledandri continued.
“We loved him as an actor and a creator, as well as a filmmaker, and so he came in, and we sat down, and he said, ‘I will do the most incredible Yoshi.’ So it was really interesting that these two casting ideas came from the actors themselves.”
You’ve got two actors who genuinely love these characters, going after the roles instead of waiting for an offer. They are at the point in their careers where they can make these kinds of moves happen.
Now with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie in theaters, audiences are getting a version of Nintendo’s universe that feels bigger and weirder, but the reviews haven’t been too good. Regardless, itwill offer a fun time for the kids!