Nintendo wants to enter the filmmaking biz.

[Jon-Erich]

joesampson said:

Jon-Erich said:

It's about creative control. Whenever a company licenses a franchise, unless certain stipulations are agreed on, the licensee often has the creative freedom to do whatever they want, which is why we had so many awful video game movies and cartoons. By doing it themselves, Nintendo has complete creative control and they can make sure soomething like the Super Mario Bros. movies never happens again.

You don't need to have complete creative control. Maybe just creative approval. Even then, just don't pick some hack writers/directors on the cheap. In my opinion a Mario movie made by Pixar or Dreamworks would be a huge commercial and critical success. If Nintendo wants to do this right they would license their IP to a reputable Hollywood studio like those. This would ensure that it is a success in the biggest markets like the US and Europe. 

For other Nintendo IPs Zelda, could be done well as either an animated or live action movie, with the right studio, writers, directors, and actors. Donkey Kong could also be successful with a Pixar/Dreamworks studio however it doesn't have quite the mainstream appeal/recognition as Mario and Zelda. The other Nintendo IPs like Kirby and Metroid would likely not have any natural mainstream appeal. They could be successful if done well but it would be because of the quality of the movie and not necessarily the appeal/popularity of the franchise. Like soundswave said about xenoblade, get the hell out of here. That's an adult swim mini series at best. 

But here's the thing about that. A lot of studios don't want to work with companies who stand over them and have to approve everything. This is why a lot of deals like that are not done. They might have certain stipulations in the contract such as the usage of certain source material or that a particular character has to be portrayed a certain way, but in most cases, a studio does not like being told what to do, even if they're working with someone else's property. This does not mean Nintendo won't hire outside directors or hire a special effects group like ILM but I imagine Nintendo would be taking the Marvel Studios approach and having a Japanese equivilent of Kevin Feige be the person in charge of most film projects.