COOL STUFF

Someone Made a Comic Book Sequel to the 'Super Mario Bros.' Movie

by Ethan Anderton
August 26, 2013
Source: Empire

Though most movies based on video games don't really live up to their potential, the adaptation of Super Mario Bros. from 1993 is the one widely regarded as one of the worst of all-time. The film does have a certain cult classic following, but there's no denying the film is a pretty epic disaster. However, comic book artists Steven Applebaum and Ryan Hoss decided the fan following was a good enough reason to put together a comic book sequel to the film, complete with insights from screenwriter Parker Bennett, who left the end of the film open with a vague cliffhanger that indicated more adventures were on the way.

Here's the cover art for Super Mario Bros. 2 courtesy of the story from Empire:

The effort by these two writers and artists is truly impressive. Talking about the potential story that would have inhabited  a real film sequel following the original film, Applebaum says:

“Parker has admitted that the sequel hook was an homage to the ending of the original 'Back To The Future,' and, in the same way, was not a serious indication of a potential sequel. If the film was successful enough to merit one, they would have gone from there."

In case you didn't know, the ending in Back to the Future was never meant to lead into an actual sequel, but the audience response to see how the story continued was so overwhelming, that the now iconic trilogy followed in its stead. As for their work on this comic book sequel, here's what they had to say:

"We did heavily discuss the world of the film, from its backstory to the character's motivations. Parker also provided a general direction for what he would have wanted to happen to these characters and what consequences from the first film would become major themes of the sequel. At that point he sort of ‘passed the torch’ to us, although he does occasionally provide additional direction."

The plan is to release a single page each week, and this will be going on for awhile:

“We have planned for ten chapters of about ten pages each, which will then lead into a final adventure to close off a 'trilogy' for the characters. We also have several side-stories to explore in what we'd like to think of as an 'expanded universe,' which will be open to other writers and artists.”

So not only is there a Super Mario Bros. 2, but there's a third story planned as well. This sequel in progress includes some familiar elements including a robot companion that should look familiar to Super Mario fans. Eryk Donovan and Jaymes Reed also contribute to the online comic which comes at the perfect time since the Super Mario Bros. film is officially 20 years old this year. Applebaum says, "Super Mario Bros. provided a look into a world too rich and too original to not explore again. We knew that the original had its fans and felt that if we brought the Mario Bros. back to Dinohattan there would be an audience for that story.” Check out the comic book sequel so far right here and keeping checking for more.

Tweet

Find more posts: Artwork, Comics, Cool Stuff

3 Comments

New comments are no longer allowed on this post.