Super Mario Bros. film scripts let us witness the (d)evolution of a story in real-time
If you’ve never seen the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie, consider yourself one of the lucky ones. If you have, then this suddenly makes it all worth it: Super Mario Bros.: The Movie Archive has compiled four early drafts of the film’s script, comprised of the original “Fantasy” version, the “Ghostbusters-influenced” version, the “Die Hard-inspired” version and, finally, the “Mad Max-inspired” version.
Not that it matters, but isn’t it fun to imagine John McClane dressed as plumber, hopping down pipes? No? Not even a little?
In case knowing what could have been makes you feel worse, just whip out the old NES, blow the dust out of your SMB cartridge, and just pretend this whole thing never happened.
–Lana Polansky
