Chris Pratt has shared his first message as the voice of Mario, saying that fans will have to wait a little bit to hear his official take on the character.
One of the strangest moments of the latest Nintendo Direct was a deep-dive into the cast of the upcoming Super Mario movie from Nintendo and Illumination. The first announcement made was that Chris Pratt would be the voice of Mario. You might know Chris Pratt from Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World, or when he was voted the worst Chris in Hollywood.
Following the Nintendo Direct announcement, Pratt took to Instagram to share a short clip reacting to the news and talking about it publically for the first time. In the short video, Pratt starts by putting on a fake Italian accent, before saying that's not what the voice will be like and telling fans that they'll have to wait to hear the full thing.
In the video, Pratt says, "That's wild. It just dawned on me right now that the quarter I stole from the wishing well to play Super Mario Bros. has come true - that I get to be the voice of Mario. But I clearly stole someone else's wish so I'm waiting for that row of karma dominos to come crashing down on me right now. But as it is right now, It's-a-me, Mario. That's not the voice, you'll have to wait to hear the voice, but we've been working hard at it, and I'm really excited to announce that I'm gonna be the voice of that videogame that I dreamed about playing as a kid. Dreams come true."
Pratt's jokes here raise some questions on how Mario will be performed in the film, and whether Pratt will put on an Italian accent for the role. It seems unlikely that Pratt will try and sound like Charles Martinett, and will instead put his own spin on the character. Whatever that spin ends up being, it's unlikely that we'll hear the voice until the first official trailer for the film drops.
Reactions to the casting announcement have generally been very confused and full of memes. Gamers seem pretty happy with most of the cast, such as Jack Black as Bowser, but the reaction to Pratt being cast as Mario has been mixed to say the least.