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Right now, Nintendo is certainly in its movie era – The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a huge hit when it launched in 2023, followed by its successful sequel. There’s also a Legend of Zelda movie in development, as well as rumblings of a Donkey Kong spin-off film. And while it’s entirely possible that Nintendo restricts its future films to its “big four” franchises – Mario, Zelda, Splatoon, and Animal Crossing – there are plenty of other Nintendo properties that could make great movies. So today, we’re going over three franchises that I could see smoothly transitioning to the big screen – as well as listing off some franchises that wouldn’t be as easy to make a movie out of.
Before we get started with my three suggestions, I’ve got a few honorable mentions. First up, Xenoblade Chronicles – this could be tough to make into a movie because the movies would be far too long. Turning a JRPG into a 2-hour long movie wouldn’t be easy (and even then, most family movies are an hour and a half at the longest). JRPGs are designed to have extremely long stories, and the Xenoblade games all have over 10 hours of cutscenes each. It’d be better-suited to an anime, but even that would have to have dozens and dozens of episodes only to wind up telling the exact same stories as the games.
We’d also like to include Pokemon and Animal Crossing here – both have had movies, but currently don’t have much of a worldwide theatrical presence. Pokemon had Detective Pikachu, which was a success, but didn’t really leave a long-lasting impression on the franchise. Similarly, Animal Crossing is popular enough to receive a film, though I’m not sure how they would go about that in the modern day. The games don’t have a story, so a new one would have to be written.
Metroid is another contender, but Samus being a silent protagonist throws a wrench into things. Metroid games are characterized by the fact that Samus is usually completely alone, and a film where she goes on one of her typical adventures would not at all be a good fit for a family movie. Nintendo doesn’t seem to have interest in making movies for a more mature audience, either – The Super Mario Bros. Movie was meant to reach as many people as possible, and something tells me that’s the approach Nintendo wants to use for its future movies as well… or maybe the Legend of Zelda movie will be rated PG-13 and throw that theory out the window.
And now that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has been successful, a Star Fox movie is potentially a good idea as well. It would almost certainly be a retelling of Star Fox 64, unfortunately. But that does raise the question, has Fox already defeated Andross prior to his appearance in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie? The Star Fox team is already established with him as the leader, so maybe a Star Fox movie would be an all-new story after all? Regardless, Fox’s appearance in the Mario movie was incredibly well-received, which might bode well for the new Star Fox on Nintendo Switch 2 as well.
Is this likely to happen? Not at all. But EarthBound’s characters and plot would actually transfer to the big screen extremely well. There’s a defined start and end, there’s a moral to the story, there are themes of growing up and coming of age and all that, and it’s something that could resonate with a wider audience.
Generally speaking, it’s a good idea for Nintendo movies to be animated, and an EarthBound one would be no exception. If you’ve played the game start to finish, then you can see the story being easily reworked for a film. EarthBound has got plenty of expressive side characters, too, as well as tons of varied locations that the group visits throughout their journey. You’d probably have to tone down Giygas a little bit for a general audience, but this could definitely work… if it wasn’t for the fact that the franchise is over and done with.
Nintendo doesn’t have anything to sell if it releases an EarthBound movie – with Mario and Zelda movies, they’ll wind up selling more copies of all the Mario and Zelda games on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. But the EarthBound games are only available as part of Nintendo Switch Online, so as much as this game would translate to a nice animated movie, there’s pretty much no incentive for Nintendo to make it.
It’s possible for the Kirby series could have a new movie, but there would certainly be some challenges along the way. For one, it’s especially important that Kirby does not speak. This was fortunately the case in the Kirby anime – outside of a few one-off words, Kirby just says “poyo” for the most part. In the games, Kirby says one-off words like “hi” very frequently, which would be completely fine in the context of a movie. That said, Kirby is mostly alone for a good portion of his adventures, and a mostly-silent protagonist doesn’t really work in the context of a film. So where does Nintendo go from here?
Nintendo could bring back some of the anime characters – for example, Tiff’s main purpose is pretty much to be a “Kirby interpreter” – but this would require deviating from the games. As much as it’s boring to revisit, Nightmare as a villain would be a good idea for the first “new” Kirby movie. He can speak, has a clear motive, and has well-defined abilities. You could argue that the first Kirby movie should be a retelling of the first Kirby game, but its plot is simply that King Dedede has stolen all the food in dream land. To properly convey Kirby’s vibe, the film would have to have a “true antagonist” that is not King Dedede or Meta Knight. But the thing is, Triple Deluxe, Planet Robobot, Star Allies, and especially Forgotten Land aren’t good places to start for an audience entirely unfamiliar with Kirby. That leads me to my next suggestion: a movie that combines Kirby’s Dream Land and Milky Way Wishes could be the best option. Other than Kirby’s Dream Land, I feel like Milky Way Wishes is the most “baseline” Kirby game. Or mini-game, in this case.
Though I’m not exactly sure what we’d do for a story here, Splatoon’s vibe is perfect for a family movie. The characters are colorful, expressive, and memorable, and you could pretty much use all of the characters and locations however you like to make a simple story. Splatoon’s main mechanic, painting the floor, would be very easily expressed through a movie, and even if the story was centered on one of the series’ villains, you could easily have Turf Wars going on in the background and make it clear that they’re a bit part of Splatoon lore.
I’m suggesting this franchise not necessarily because I have a plot in mind, but because this is probably one of Nintendo’s most flexible franchises when it comes to a movie adaptation. You could have an Inkling protagonist arrive at one of the major cities for the first time, and have them get wrapped up in a secret agent mission to defeat Octavio or whoever they’d like to pick. Though it’s probably best to save the Deepsea Metro for a sequel rather than the first movie.
We’ll no doubt see more movies from Nintendo in the future, but who’s to say which franchises they’ll pick. My greatest fear is that they make a Kirby movie where Kirby is torn away from Popstar and enters a live-action human world where he has to defeat a powerful antagonist from his world who wants to now take over Earth. Please, Nintendo, don’t do that!
In any case, which franchise do you want to see Nintendo turn into a movie next? Feel free to let us know in the comments down below.
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