The Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer is out and the stinger at the end of the trailer is dedicated to a Luigi chase scene, with Luigi looking terrified. In 2001, Nintendo published their second Luigi-centric video game titled Luigi's Mansion for the GameCube. Luigi's Mansion elevated Luigi as a character and later spawned two sequel video games, the third of which was released in 2019 for the Nintendo Switch.
The story begins with Luigi winning a mansion through some contest and coming to find out it is badly run down and haunted by a ghost named King Boo. Luigi goes around with the Poltergust 3000 vacuum, cleaning up the property of supernatural entities and rescuing his brother Mario who has been roped into the whole ordeal, a clear homage to the classic 80's comedy Ghostbusters. The Super Mario Bros. Movie may be capitalizing on the success of the game.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie seems to be an origin story of sorts for many of the beloved characters in the game. The story itself will need to touch upon each of those characters in a meaningful way by giving each Super Mario character a meaningful journey. The most likely scenario seems to be that Luigi's story will involve his search for his brother, a search that will place him smack dab in the middle of a ghostly situation inspired by the video game Luigi's Mansion.
Is Super Mario Bros Adapting Luigi's Mansion?
With the reveal that Mario lands in the Mushroom Kingdom with no idea where he is, it can be assumed that he may have done so both accidentally, and alone. His brother Luigi will no doubt be searching for him and have to follow clues to get there. Whether it becomes the focus of Luigi's subplot in the film will dictate how much of those spooky little callbacks we get to the original video game. Based on Illumination's The Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer, it looks like those clues lead Luigi to a mansion (or dark castle) while being pursued by possessed Dry Bones. It remains to be seen if those Dry Bones are being controlled by Bowser or a potential second threat in the form of King Boo. Either way, loosely adapting the concept of Luigi fighting supernatural entities seems like something Illumination has hinted at in this first trailer.
There is a chance that The Super Mario Bros. Movie chooses not to go the route of Luigi's Mansion. Though updates about this Mario movie are few so far, the imagery and tone of the Mario movie's final trailer scene show that Illumination is aware of that creepy tone that fans so enjoyed about Luigi's Mansion. This contrasts with Mario's own more colorful and vibrant hero stories, and could mean that Luigi will be having a very different adventure in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
