When Shigeru Miyamoto first created the little Italian plumber climbing the skyscrapers in 1981’s Donkey Kong, I doubt he imagined the pixelated fella would end up fully realized on the big screen one day.
Yet, here we are. And after 40 years of evolution, Miyamoto says he believes Mario has finally become a “person” in a sense, thanks to that film debut.
Miyamoto told us this in an interview we conducted at the Nintendo Museum in Kyoto, ahead of the release of the Super Mario Galaxy Movie. We asked him about the design of Mario and how it’s evolved over the years, eventually landing on what we see in the movie:
“Just like the first design I made of Mario is very different from the current Mario, Mario continues to evolve as a character, and when working with Chris [Meledandri]-San, you know, obviously, there’s the phase of going from illustration to 3D to become models and figures. And once it becomes a movie, I’ve been saying that it becomes a person. And now that the ‘person’ has gone through, you know, struggles and really evolved or grew as that person, having all different kinds of emotions and really grown as a character. And I think seeing Mario or seeing any character go through a rich expansion of character, I think that’s something that I’m sure the character is happy about and I feel happy about it.”
Meledandri, also in the interview, noted that Illumination’s designers usually start “with the most recent iteration of each character from Nintendo,” and that design evolution comes when they add details, like Mario’s individual mustache hairs. Miyamoto also told us that he still takes his pen and marks up Illumination’s CG drawings with his own ideas during the design process, just as he hand-drew Mario all those years ago.
Toward the end of the interview, Miyamoto again reminisced about Mario’s evolution over time, comparing him to another famous mascot:
“So right from the get-go, when I created Mario, and, you know, looking at Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse is a character that evolves and grows alongside animation,” he said. “And we felt that Mario is a character that grows and evolves alongside digital technology. And so as we have more digital technology that allows many ways to distribute that and share that with more people, those things come together to form this unison. And as we’re talking about these films, we started to feel like films are another medium that Mario can star in and be featured in. And so really seeing that come together provides us with more opportunities for people to be able to engage with and be introduced to Nintendo, the world of Nintendo, and that this kind of coming together is something that I appreciate and love seeing.”
We spoke to Miyamoto and Meledandri about all sorts of things, including R.O.B. and other cameo appearances in the film, and why they skipped Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine and went straight to galaxy. You can read our full interview with both of them right here. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hits theaters on April 1, 2026, and you can read our review of the film here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
Brian Altano is an Executive Producer and host and also a lifelong Nintendo fan who was quietly losing his mind geeking out at all of the cool stuff at the Nintendo Museum. Did you know Nintendo made a stroller in 1965? Like, for babies? They have one there at the museum! How crazy is that!
