Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has reiterated the company’s future plans for film and animated content featuring its IP.
In an interview with Kyoto Shimbun (paywalled but read by VGC), Furukawa discussed the progress of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which is set for release in April, as well as the live-action The Legend of Zelda movie coming in 2027.
Furukawa explained that Nintendo believes it’s important to be invested and deeply involved in the production of these movies from the planning and development stages, stressing that the company’s commitment to meticulous craftsmanship applies not only to games but to films and merchandise.
“Through this consistent approach, we gradually earn customer trust, which ultimately leads not just to awareness of our characters, but ultimately turns them into fans,” Furukawa said (via machine translation).
“While we certainly don’t ignore short-term profits, our main focus is increasing character exposure beyond our games. Films allow us to reach people even in regions where game consoles are not yet widespread. If possible, we’d like to build a structure that allows us to continue making films beyond these two.”
Furukawa also referenced the recent Close to You animated short films, created by its Nintendo Pictures subsidiary to spread awareness of the Pikmin characters.
The company acquired Japanese CG studio Dynamo Pictures in 2022, renaming it Nintendo Pictures and tasking with a “focus on development of visual content utilising Nintendo IP”.
Furukawa explained that Nintendo decided to acquire the company while The Super Mario Bros Movie was in production, because it realised that having an in-house team capable of creating more video content beyond theatrical movies would be beneficial in spreading further awareness of its characters.
“We recently released two short videos featuring Pikmin characters, and observing the response we sensed the potential for future video content development,” he said.
“Games inevitably face constraints over time, such as previous software no longer becoming playable when hardware generations change. One advantage of video content, however, is that if it’s good it can be enjoyed for a long time across various platforms.”
Furukawa was asked if Nintendo was considering turning one of its IP into an anime series at some point in the future, as has been the case with Pokémon and – in the past – F-Zero GP Legend in 2003 and the Kirby anime in 2001.
“I think it would be quite challenging to get to that point,” Furukawa replied, but stressed that if it was possible to “create distinctive works that are unique to Nintendo”, then it could be a good thing to aim for in the long term.
When it was known as Dynamo Pictures, Nintendo Pictures produced CG for a number of movies and TV shows, including Yuri on Ice, Aya and the Witch and season two of Netflix‘s Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045.
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