Ahead of The Super Mario Bros. Movie opening, fans have been debating which characters might appear, and pinning their hopes on their most obscure favourites making a brief appearance in the background or hoping the biggest guns yet to be revealed will show up and change the game. But there was only one character I was interested in: Bowsette. I knew she wouldn’t make an appearance this time around, but the fight for Bowsette in Super Mario 2 starts here, and both Charlie Day and Chris Pratt are on my side.
Bowsette is not an official Super Mario character, but a fan creation who comes into existence when Bowser steals the Super Crown crown and wears it himself, turning into a Peach-Bowser hybrid. Created by Ayyk92, it originally began as a wholesome riff on two popular Super Mario characters, and then took on a life of its own as a viral phenomenon. After briefly explaining this to Day and Pratt while trying to hide how embarrassingly online I am as a human being, the question was simple - will you join the fight for Bowsette in Super Mario 2?
“It's gotta be Jack,” Pratt says. It’s not even a question of ‘if’ for him, it’s simply the conundrum of who to cast, before deciding Jack Black, the current Bowser, could take on the role. “Jack's got to play Bowsette.”
Day’s also on our side, although he’s less ‘all-in’ on the idea than Pratt seems to be. “I think they could sneak that in, if Nintendo approves,” he admits. I’m counting that as one and a half votes out of two for Bowsette, which rises to two and a half out of three including my own. I assume my opinion, as a random journalist, carries as much weight with Nintendo as the voice of Mario himself.
A perhaps more normal wishlisted character is Princess Daisy, whose place amongst the core Mario cast has fluctuated in recent years. However fans of the tomboy ruler might be in for disappointment. My own hopes were raised then crushed as I mistook the Sand Kingdom in the final trailer for Sarasaland, only for the upside down pyramid to stab my dreams of Daisy through the heart.
As Luigi’s on screen girlfriend, you’d think Daisy would be near the top of Day’s list. To hear him tell it though, all Luigi needs in his life is Mario. “It'd be nice to have a girlfriend,” he admits. “But this movie is more about brotherly love.”
Pratt, on the other hand, is not stopping with just Bowsette. He knows exactly who he wants to fight in the sequel, as well as who he wants to play. “Wario, that'd be interesting to see. [He’s] like a bizarro Mario or something like that. So that'd be a good one. And would I be able to voice Wario? Whoa. But it’s too soon to talk about a sequel.”
I disagree. Now is the perfect time to start building up steam for my petition to call it The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2: The Wrath of Bowsette. For those of you who want to see the first, non-Bowsette movie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is in cinemas April 5.