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Super Mario Bros Retrospective : GV Classic

March 18, 2026·1 hr 25 min·5 clips

The hosts call Super Mario Bros. the biggest bungling of an IP-to-movie adaptation they can think of.

1. GeekVerse Podcast’s "Super Mario Bros Retrospective : GV Classic" centers on the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie and why the panel thinks it failed as an adaptation. 2. Hosts Travis Snail, Kirkland Patzer, and Dylan Moss guide the discussion, and John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins matter because they play Luigi and Mario. 3. The episode asks whether a live-action Super Mario movie can keep the game’s characters, tone, and world intact. 4. The hosts describe the film as a weird mix of Brooklyn, fungus, and a "nightmarish world" rather than the Mushroom Kingdom. 5. Taylor says he went in knowing the Goombas and Koopa imagery but not the story, then watched it with Madison, who hated it. 6. Kirkland says he started the film, fell asleep, and woke up angry at having to finish the rest over two days. 7. The panel compares the film’s $45 million budget to the 1989 Batman budget of $48 million. 8. They note that Batman earned about $411 million while Super Mario Bros. earned about $38 million. 9. Dylan says the film is not "so bad it’s good" and calls it boring, which he treats as the worst kind of failure. 10. The hosts say Nintendo reacted by banning more live-action films after this release. 11. Travis says the movie’s biggest problem is that it keeps the names "Mario" and "Luigi" while changing everything else into a new cyberpunk story. 12. Taylor describes King Koopa as a creepy, tongue-twitching "sex addict" type of villain. 13. The group says Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo work better than the movie around them, especially when they banter as brothers. 14. Travis adds trivia that Leguizamo later said he and Hoskins were drunk for much of the shoot because they knew the production was bad. 15. They also discuss Dennis Hopper, who reportedly stayed on the production for 17 weeks instead of the original three. 16. The hosts mention a three-hour screaming match between Hopper and the directors that delayed the set. 17. Taylor says the film’s sets and costumes look expensive, even if the direction and writing do not support them. 18. The conversation is casual, skeptical, and joke-heavy, with frequent side comments about patreon, future retrospectives, and the show’s own history. 19. Listeners who like video-game adaptation talk and production trivia will probably enjoy this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a reverent Mario celebration will probably skip it.

As heard by us

A lively rewind on a bizarre Mario movie, with the Yoshi fixation doing most of the work.

This retrospective treats the old live-action Super Mario Bros. movie as a strange, funny object and lets the conversation stay loose enough to match it.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want a Super Mario Bros. retrospect that keeps circling back to creepy Yoshi?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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