Interview: Todd Holland on Directing The Wizard

Jan. 17 4:05 PM by Lynxara

If you're anywhere near my age, you remember The Wizard. It's a ridiculous movie... that let you see footage of Super Mario Bros. 3 in action before the game came out. If you were around eight at the time it could do no wrong.

Todd Holland directed this greatest of Nintendo propaganda films, and reveals a lot of surprising things about the making of the movie in this interview with Ain't It Cool News. If you're all about the NES nostalgia, you want to read this.

Monki: With people, the one criticism you always hear about THE WIZARD is that it's an hour and a half NINTENDO commercial and really you only hear the name NINTENDO called out twice in the whole film. Did NINTENDO have any hand in the movie at all as far as any kind of clout or anything or is that an urban legend?

Todd Holland: In terms of content, they were at our beck and call to provide us with what we needed, which SUPER MARIO BROS. 3 was the big cue and the power glove, so we were very much... They would have to provide us with these great videogame elements that people would want a glimpse at before the release, but they had no say in the story or anything like the plot or anything.