Nintendo Just Gave Us A Perfect Concept For A Mario Kart…

Summary

Mario Kart 9 becomes Mario Kart World, allowing players to race off the track in a new freeroaming mode.
A potential Mario Kart movie should draw inspiration from Fast & Furious stunts while maintaining Nintendo's family-friendly essence.
Mario Kart World offers limitless possibilities for a film adaptation, breaking traditional rules and exploring an open world setting.

Nintendo just dropped a tsunami of new gaming titles, features, and indie projects coming to Nintendo Switch 2 after its release. The first-ever Nintendo Switch 2 Direct opened with a bang. A show-stopping, heart-racing first announcement that Mario Kart 9 is actually going to be Mario Kart World. It's a complete reinvention of the series, but Nintendo may also have just incidentally created the ideal concept for a Mario Kart movie.

Nintendo set a record in 2023 by releasing The Super Mario Bros. Movie, topping the charts as the highest-grossing film ever to be based on a video game. It was a commercial hit, garnering widespread support from new audience members and long-time Mario fans. One of the most impressive and dazzling sections of the movie was the spectacular Mario Kart racing scene on Rainbow Road. It was a faithful and fun on-screen portrayal of the most iconic Mario spin-off game. There has been frequent speculation online as to what a Mario movie sequel should focus on. Rumors have circulated that a second outing could put side-characters like Luigi or Donkey Kong in the driving seat. But given Mario Kart World's exciting and fresh take on one of their most popular system sellers, Nintendo should look more closely at a screen adaptation of this beloved franchise.

Every Mario Kart Game Launch Price Adjusted for Inflation

Mario Kart World’s price is raising questions, so it's worth looking at how past Mario Kart games compare when adjusted for inflation.

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By Carla Carmona

Mario Kart World is the new flagship system seller, and it’s taking the series in a wild direction. Anyone that's grown up playing this series knows that there are a few sacred absolutes about Mario Kart games. One of those cardinal rules is that players are not allowed to veer off the track too much. Most courses feature rail guard barriers. Lakitu will pick players up if they fall off ledges or drop into open chasms. Any non-asphalt terrain will slow your kart down. The game is very restrictive in terms of movement and punishes racers for being too liberal with their creative choices.

Nintendo has just taken this primordial rule and completely thrown it out. It's complete Mario Kart blasphemy in the best way possible. Players in Mario Kart World will be allowed to race off the track wherever they want when competing in Grands Prix. Gamers can also explore a vast continent of different areas in a brand-new freeroaming mode, karting between racetracks with zero restrictions. Its open world design meets Mario Kart in a liberating and explosively imaginative upgrade.

A Mario Kart Movie Needs To Be Explosive & Action-Packed

The subgenre of racing-action films is a well-trodden path at this point. Avid car enthusiasts are extremely passionate, and even general audiences that don't particularly have a huge fondness for racing find the selection of car-related films to be very watchable.

Now that Mario Kart isn't confined to the traditions of its gaming predecessors, a movie should strive to take inspiration from multiple different sources. While the story doesn't need to be a heavily detailed-oriented film, focusing on the logistics of racing, it would go a long way to flesh out a spin-off game that offers very little lore for screenwriters to work with. Films like Ford v Ferrari (2019) are spectacular pieces of cinema that demonstrate the emotional stakes that lie under the surface of the racing industry. The life-long rivalries that exist between racers and industry captains are extremely entertaining because they are such personal dramas. It would be an interesting place for a Mario Kart film to derive its stakes and sense of tension.

The animated film which would probably serve as a good showcase for how a Mario Kart onscreen world would even function is Pixar's Cars. Its grounded but slightly absurd universe has a good combination of wacky car-themed elements, but still holds true to that Pixar tradition of exploring the human condition within its main character, Lightning McQueen. If a Mario Kart World screen adaptation has players interacting with a universe in which everything is car-oriented in its infrastructure, then Cars is a great example of how a Mario Kart society would even operate.

However, the one film franchise Nintendo should look at more than any other is the Fast & Furious franchise. It spans multiple years and has dominated the racing-film landscape. The series in its latter years has increasingly featured insane and breathtaking stunts, usually enhanced with CGI. In Furious 7, Vin Diesel's character, Dominic Toretto, drives a Lykan Hypersport through the window of one of the Etihad Towers and jumps over to the next skyscraper. Scenes like these feel right at home with some of the more fantastical Mario Kart tracks. At the end of the day, that's all a Mario Kart film needs to do to succeed; create stunning and exhilarating moments, with a fairly decent drama underlying its thrills.

A Mario Kart movie can distinguish itself markedly in a slightly oversaturated racing film market by possessing something that none of the other productions have; that quality of family-fun that feels so innately Nintendo. Mario Kart World opens up limitless possibilities of what a film adaptation can be by throwing out the rulebook and allowing an onscreen portrayal to accelerate to any destination in a Mario Kart- themed universe.

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