While last year's biggest Nintendo Direct stirred controversy by announcing Chris Pratt as Mario in Illumination's upcoming Super Mario Bros. film, there is a way it could work. Many were understandably upset that the longtime voice of Mario and Luigi, Charles Martinet, wouldn't be voicing his iconic roles in this new film. Nintendo gave a bit of consolation by revealing that Martinet would be involved to some degree, but a cameo can only do so much to ease the disappointment. The wound only stung more with news that the Star-Lord actor would also be playing Garfield in an upcoming reboot, leading to many jokes and memes about how many big animated roles Pratt would be cast in. However, there's still hope for the upcoming Super Mario Bros. film adaptation.
Video game adaptations have been steadily improving, with films like Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog earning unprecedented acclaim for the sub-genre. Super Mario Bros. itself boasts a stellar cast in addition to Chris Pratt, such as Jack Black as Bowser. Pairing that with Nintendo's meticulous control over their properties ever since the box office failure of the (criminally underrated though not particularly faithful) 1993 Super Mario Bros. film, the Illumination adaptation should at least carry the spirit of the franchise regardless of who's voicing Mario.
However, specifically regarding Pratt, there's an approach the film could take that would be a win-win. In an interview with GameInformer, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto mentioned that the Mario cast, both heroes and villains, is akin to a theater troupe. The film could adapt this idea into its premise by taking a Muppets-like meta approach, making each Mario game a "performance" with the film's story focusing on Mario's life outside of those performances. Martinet could then voice Mario as his "stage voice" in the games while Pratt voices the rest of the film as Mario's "everyday" voice. It wouldn't make the Pratt casting perfect (again, the number of big animated roles Chris Pratt is voicing is getting farcical), but it would give a lot more room for his take to work.
Firstly, it would prevent the Martinet voice from becoming overbearing. While iconic, the voice is probably hard for Martinet to maintain for long periods. It would also prevent the voice from becoming too much for audiences. Mario's signature "wahoos" and "mama mias" and the high-pitched voice Martinet uses may be great sound bytes while playing a game, but listening to full dialogue in that voice may get a bit grating and hard to understand.
Secondly, giving Mario a "stage voice" might make him stand out among the many previous takes on Mario. Just about any job comes with a certain level of performativity, whether it's putting on a smile for a customer or trying to be a team player for a boss and coworkers. A Mario who puts on a similar persona for his job only to sound like a regular guy when he goes home and maybe even gets stressed out by constantly having to be his chipper game self so much of the time to make a living could be a character the audience can really relate to.
Ultimately, this angle would make both fans and Hollywood happy: fans get the classic Marinet voice in some form, and the film industry gets to have a big celebrity in the lead. It would even allow the film to go outside the box narratively. Still, it isn't likely that the film will take this meta route, possibly being too strange like the '93 Super Mario Bros. film was. If on the off chance the movie does do something like this, however, maybe having Chris Pratt star in the Super Mario Bros. movie won't be so bad.