Mario directors say Chris Pratt “made total sense.” We'll believe it when we hear it
After several trailers hiding Chris Pratt’s Mario voice, the directors of The Super Mario Bros. movies still think this is a good idea
Hindsight is 20/20. Maybe in six months, when The Super Mario Bros. has been released, forgotten, and rebooted, we’ll all wax nostalgic about how wrong we were about Chris Pratt as Mario, how he’s so much better than who they get to play Mario next (probably Tom Holland), and how it’s another example of audiences not seeing a director’s vision, like when fans broke out in hives over Michael Keaton playing Batman.
Of course, many concerns regarding the casting of Batman and Batman villains dissipate after a trailer when fans can see the actor’s take. Thus far, in the Super Mario Bros. press cycle, we’re still waiting to actually hear this voice. One could argue that the marketing hides Chris Pratt’s take on Mario’s voice. Three trailers in, he still feels miscast, and waiting to really hear Pratt’s Italian accent has only fueled more speculation that it’s worse than we think. Thus far, we heard Mario say, “Mushroom Kingdom, here we come,” and “Alright, let’s a-go” in a manner that could be described as Chris Pratt’s normal speaking voice with a slight tinge of the accent to make fans happy.
Nevertheless, the film’s directors, Michael Jelenic and Aaron Horvath, say Chris Pratt made “total sense.” Way more sense than, say, an actual voice actor (we can’t have those in animated movies these days), like Charles Martinet, who has voiced Mario for decades and probably deserves the sweet payday and notoriety that comes from a massive Hollywood picture. Still, for this movie, Horvath says Pratt was the guy.