An impressive success for Super Mario Bros. the movie
After burglarizing the house in the world of video games, the most famous plumber is doing the same in the cinema with Super Mario Bros. the movie. The animated film is already a huge success over $710 million in revenue raised worldwide. Thanks to its soundtrack, the film fared better than frozen 2 startup-wide and became the highest-grossing video game adaptation to date.
Unsurprisingly, most of these revenues come from the US market (over $358 million). But French audiences also play a large part in the film’s success. With already more than 3 million entries after two weekends of operation, France ranks as the third most profitable European country For Super Mario Bros.and fifth in the world.
In France, in fact, the public has the opportunity to see the film in two versions. In English subtitled with the voices of Hollywood stars such as Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy or Jack Black. And in the French version. Nothing too surprising for an animated film. Unless French versiondid not use such “catchy” names. No starsbut professional voice actors such as Pierre Tessier and Benoït Du Pac, respectively voice of Mario and Luigi. A paying choice that wasn’t so obvious at the beginning.
Professional voice actors rather than stars
For large productions such as Super Mario Bros.studios do they usually cater to celebrities in vogue to attract the greatest number (voices become a promotional tool). Thus, Gad Elmaleh lent the voice of him to Gru for I, ugly and meanMalik Bentalha became Sonic and François Civil Buzz l’Eclair.
But this time it was different, largely thanks to the first trailer of Super Mario Bros.presented in October 2022. The VF it was then made with dub actors who could later be replaced by stars. Except that this VF was immediately proposed by the French public and abroad, as Jérôme Lachasse writes in his article for BFM extension which returns to the success of this dubbing.
Fans make a lot of montages by compiling the different Mario entries in different countries. The French version, by Pierre Tessier, stands out immediately, before being hailed as the best possible interpretation of the character imagined by Shigeru Miyamoto.
From then on, the production was somehow forced to keep French voice actors for the final result, as Benoît Du Pac explains.
They had already taken a scud from the fans with Sonic. They were afraid of a new nasty buzz. (Universal, Illumination and Nintendo) were a little involved in spite of themselves and a little overwhelmed by the hype. We were so happy to get to the end.
A bet succeeds after a long roll
It also took the insistence of Valérie Siclay, artistic director of the dubbing of Super Mario Bros. that although she believes that the “star-talent offers some visibility“ AND “starification brought respect (to) the profession“, since, in this case, the best thing to do was to do so hire dubbing professionals.
Naturally, the voice acting of Super Mario Bros. was followed closely by the production (including Universal France, Universal USA, Illumination France, Illumination USA and Nintendo) and the voice actors underwent several tests with “five levels of validation“as explained by Valérie Siclay.
We then ended up convincing Pierre Tessier and Benoît Du Pac, but also Audrey Sourdive for Peach, Jérémie Covillault for Bowser or Emmanuel Garijo for Toad. However, even though the VF was rented before the film’s release, the voice actors remained in the shadowsnot participating in the promotion of the film and not being invited to the preview of Super Mario Bros..
Super Mario Bros. is in theaters from April 5, 2023 and we therefore strongly advise you to find out in VF.
Source: Cine Serie
Ray Ortiz is a journalist at Gossipify, known for his coverage of trending news and current events. He is committed to providing readers with accurate and unbiased reporting, and is respected for his ability to keep readers informed on the latest news and issues.