Whether you loved it, hated it, or still have PTSD over the “Peaches” song, it’s hard to deny that The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a smash. In some ways, a sequel felt inevitable… but that doesn’t mean that the lead-up to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hasn’t been fun.
Now that the proverbial doors have been blown off in the first movie, and Yoshi has been teased through a post-credits scene, it felt like anything could possibly be folded into The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. And yet, nothing could have prepared me for just how genius the sequel’s recent casting choices are.
The first teaser trailer for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie was released on Wednesday, and with it came confirmation of two major players in the movie. Captain Marvel and Room‘s Brie Larson has been cast as Princess Rosalina, while actor, writer, director, and accidental Oppenheimer meme Benny Safdie has been cast as Bowser Jr.
Let’s start with Larson’s casting, which is inspired on multiple levels. Not only does her casting feel on par with Emmy winner Anya Taylor-Joy being brought on to voice Princess Peach, but it just feels right given how big of a Nintendo fan she is. Larson has worn her love for those games and that world on her sleeve for a while… sometimes literally, in the case of cosplaying Metroid protagonist Samus. As Twitter was quick to remind everyone in the wake of this trailer drop, Larson’s love for Nintendo has gone so far that she literally threw her first boyfriend out of the house, after he demeaned her for being so dedicated to the final level of Super Mario Galaxy.
“He said that I was ‘taking it too seriously,’ so I threw him out of my house,” Larson explained in a 2020 YouTube video.
Finally, Bowser Jr. casting!
I’m sure I’m not alone in saying: I love Bowser Jr. I feel weirdly maternal towards him and his pint-sized character design. He is my go-to character to main in any Mario game, and this video of him being ignored by his father during a mini-game of Mario Party gets brought up in my household at least once a month. Ever since I first saw the Mario movie in the spring of 2023, I have been simultaneously waiting for and dreading the day that I open up my phone and find out who is voicing him, and those feelings only grew when he was first rumored to be in the film earlier this fall.
Part of that dread was because… nobody could really agree on who should play him, especially as a complement to Jack Black’s over-the-top performance as Bowser. The fancasts online, either seriously or facetiously, ranged from Kevin Hart to The Rizzler. I, personally, couldn’t get the idea of Tim Robinson voicing him out of my head.
In lieu of that, I do think that Safdie is a choice that is just as inspired and gleefully unhinged. The news genuinely shocked people, in part because the graphic used to announce it during Nintendo’s livestream looked like a bizarre Photoshop or a Smiling Friends gag. It was doubly shocking once you watched the trailer and discovered that his voice for Bowser Jr. is actually pretty great.
It’s also such a memorable choice given the nature of Safdie’s filmography, both in front of and behind the camera. He been involved with Oscar winners or contenders, and also projects that are genuinely deranged… or, in the case of Uncut Gems, a combination of the two. While I guarantee that most of the younger kids watching The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will have no idea who Safdie is, that irony is going to wash over any slightly-online older viewer of the movie in a really fun way. It also tells me that Safdie saw something fun and worthwhile in the task of voicing this movie’s Bowser Jr., which is all the endorsement I need right now.
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
