The infamous 1993 film adaption of Super Mario Bros The Movie, the first movie ever based on a video game, is getting a brand new 4K upscaling from the people over at Bigger Pictures Film Restoration & smbmovie.com, overseen by Steven Applebaum & Ryan Hoss from the Super Mario Bros Movie Archive.
Though the original film was a box office bomb back in the day, the movie has gained a popular cult following over the years. Even Quinten Tarintino is a fan!
There have been several versions of the Super Mario Bros Movie over the years released on various platforms. In 2014 it hit an official DVD & Bluray for the first time from Second Sight Films. This version featured the European 'bubble' film logo on the front cover. It also included the then-brand new documentary 'This Ain't No Game' reuniting directors Rocky Morton & Annabel Jankel, Fisher Stevens, John Leguizamo, and a bunch of other writers & producers of the movie in an hour long documentary reflecting on the highs and the lows of the film's production.
I grew up watching the Super Mario Bros Movie on VHS as a kid back in the early 90's. I got real excited to see a Super Mario Bros Movie. Back then, I used to rent it out every week. So much times that the video rental store staff said "Did you just want to buy it?" and yes I did. I still own the Australian VHS tape I have to this day.
Even when I was small, I absolutely loved this movie for being incredibly bonkers and weird as it was. Back then, in the games - Mario didn't have a voice. Mario wasn't three-dimensional. The movie just absolutely blew my mind. And the cast. Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper! It was like Indiana Jones on crack. Though Bob Hoskins famously hated working on this movie, I still consider it as one of his best roles.
And what a soundtrack! Roxette, Queen, Megadeth, George Clinton, Extreme, Joe Satriani, US3 - and more! This film as a kid got me into a lot of those bands that I still enjoy today. In 2015, I went to see Roxette live at the Entertainment Centre in Sydney, Australia. It was a big show. During the encores the lights dimmed, and they came out with 'Almost Unreal' and the crowd went nuts. Hearing the movie theme song live from the band that performed it was truly an emotional and amazing experience.
Unarguably the 'Holy Grail' of cinema, was when the Deleted Scenes of the movie was found a couple of years ago on a old VHS at a film maker's garage sale. The tapes were bought by the SMBArchive folks, they restored them and shared a brand new extended cut on Internet Archive which extended the film to 2 hours and 10 minutes. A lot of the deleted scenes though were in the original workprint phase.
In 2021, Umbrella Entertainment re-released the film on DVD & Bluray, this time using the more traditional steel block US poster logo that we all know for the art. The Umbrella Entertainment release was certainly an improvement over the Second Sight release.
Now in 2024 just off the film's 30th Anniversary, SMBMovie Archive have once again teamed up with Umbrella Entertainment to release a brand new version of the film again. This time it's called the "Lasagna Cut", which features a brand new 4K Upscaling of the original film and new remasters of the recently found deleted scenes from the VHS tape.
You can check out this brand new and awesome documentary short which shows how they actually remastered the movie for the new release!
You can check out the details of the new versions of the 4K Super Mario Bros Movie here! (the big boxset is already sold out but check it out anyway!)
The new 'Lasagna Cut' of the Super Mario Bros Movie is expected to release on February 21 2024!
Trust the fungus
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