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It's Technical

How Wreck-It Ralph Gets To Use All Those Famous Video Game Characters & Why Mario Was Left Out

by Jill Pantozzi | 12:33 pm, September 18th, 2012


Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph is a veritable who’s-who of video game history. We saw several classic characters in the first trailer and a few more (heroes and villains) in the second trailer but one is conspicuously missing – Mario! You may be thinking it has something to do with property rights (and you’re not alone) but then why is Mario’s nemesis Bowser in the film and our favorite plumber is not? Producer Clark Spencer explains while revealing just how crazy video game companies are. 

Spencer did an interview with Total Film in which they asked him why Mario doesn’t make an appearance.

“The hard thing was, we were trying to work out the right way to use a character like Mario. It had to be organic to the film, we didn’t want to just paste him in there,” he said. “For Bowser, it made perfect sense for him to be a member of the Bad Anon group. For Mario himself we couldn’t think of the right way to incorporate him into the film, and so we didn’t do it.”

But how did they go about approaching video game companies in the first place?

Rich [Moore, director] and I went to E3, and pitched the movie to all the different game companies, talking about the concept. What was great about that was we developed a one-on-one relationship [with the people at the game companies], and people warmed to the idea. So they felt like it could be something interesting, but they were still a little skeptical, as they were giving their own creative characters over to Wreck-It Ralph. And so we said we’d keep them involved in the process, and give them the script pages. We showed them the models, we showed them the early animation tests, and even the final animations. We brought them along the entire way, and it made companies willing to participate, because they felt like we were going to be true to their characters. As a result we got pretty much almost anything we wanted, because the companies started feeling the momentum and everybody pretty much said yes to us.

And in case you were wondering, no, utilizing the characters they were allowed to use in Wreck-It Ralph wasn’t as easy as hitting “start.”

“The games companies were very specific – there’s a scene in which Bowser drinks a cup of coffee, and they were very specific about how Bowser would drink coffee,” said Spencer. “The other thing that was fascinating to me was that all of the companies know how tall their characters are. There was lots of conversation about which character would be the biggest character in that Bad Anon scene. Even to the specifics of centimeters.”

But Spencer said all that input was actually helpful because they wanted to remain authentic.

He said, “We had a scene where we wanted the rings to come out of Sonic, and SEGA said the only way that happens is if he falls over, and we didn’t have him fall over in the scene, so we actually went back and re-animated it.”

I mean, come on, people, everyone knows that.

(via Kotaku)

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  • http://zadl.org/ Captain ZADL

    I am so looking forward to this. And I don’t have kids.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=774950160 Dean Kish

    Um could Mario had been left out because Wreck It Ralph, the character, is basically Donkey Kong and his hero is Fix-It Felix is basically Mario… Can you imagine what kind of movie this would have been if Wreck It Ralph was actually Donkey Kong jumping from game to game with Mario trying to find him???

  • http://geekpinata.com/ Crystal Lynn

    Can’t WAIT to see this!

  • BirdBot

    I can’t help but wonder if Mario will actually make a cameo in the film, but they are keeping mum so it’s a fun surprise when you actually see it.

  • http://twitter.com/LanceBravestar1 Lance Bravestar

    Wow, I didn’t realize how much thought was put on each cameo. Though I still think it’s weird that they considered Zangief a bad guy.

  • Nicole Kiser

    They could do it during the credits. :)

  • http://twitter.com/zenoferic Erica Throne

    It would be more hilarious if Luigi appeared, or the Princess, or both… And no Mario. XD

  • Anonymous

    Along with a line from Luigi like “Glad I’m not the one on call tonight!”

  • http://everythingiscats.wordpress.com/ Krystal

    Well, I am about a hundred times more excited to see this now.

  • Anonymous

    Just for fun, here’s everything that people have managed to figure about arcade game references and cameos so far:

    http://theragingfanboy.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/the-litwaks-family-fun-center-gang/

  • http://twitter.com/BagOfMagicFood Ryan Ferneau

    Maybe it could end with a Wrecking Crew cabinet moving in, and we see
    Mario and Luigi running around in hard hats with hammers, shouting “We
    can wreck it!”

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