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OK, this one requires some backstory: See, remember the Super Mario Brothers move? Apparently, when Jeffery Katzenberg pitched the idea of getting Mario's movie rights to Disney, he meant to parlay that into integrating Mario, and other Nintendo properties, into Disney theme parks, the way Universal's doing now IOTL.

Let's say that, in this world, the movie is successful. They go with the original script: A comedic fantasy movie in the vein of The Princess Bride. The Mario Brothers, with plumbing as their game, find the secret warp zone while working on the drain, and go into a Mushroom Kingdom that's very fantasy-influenced, reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland, a land of checkered brick roads, mushroom people, and an anthropomorphic dragon known as King Koopa, where they must rescue the Princess Hildy from his plot to marry her: Mario is an older, reluctant hero while Luigi is a young dreamer and gets the girl. Harold Ramis directs, the actors are mostly the same, and, after a slew of good reviews and a BIG advertising push, it ends up very successful: Grossing 500 million dollars against a 50 million dollar budget, it ends up the second-highest-grossing movie of 1993, although admittedly, by a VERY noticeable gap, since the first is Jurassic Park. Still, it's a hit, and a big one.

What next? Does Disney actually get those theme park rights? Potentially not: The next year was a chaotic one for Disney as Frank Wells, the man who had been keeping the titanic egos of Eisner and Katzenberg from running into each other, died, but, then, this could Butterfly that, due to the circumstances of said death. Would Nintendo agree to make more movies out of their properties? Would they all be live-action or no? I mean, this was shortly before Disney started their deal with Ghibli: Could that deal happen sooner, as part of a general Japanese push on their part, or not at all, since they already have one beloved Japanese entertainment company as an ally now? Would we see more video game movies, as other studios get in on this seemingly lucrative market, espesiclaly since one of them IS a video game developer itself, or will be, starting the year after? How would a team up with Disney affect Nintendo's cultural relevance? Mario, by this point, was already more recognizable then Mickey Mouse: having the two standing side-by-side would be a powerful image, and will probably be seen at the opening of Nintendo Land. Might we see Disney become the multi-media juggernaut we know and fear a bit ahead of schedule? Even if they don't out-and-out buy Nintendo, their brands being associated WOULD give Disney a lot of cache. Lots of possibilities, is what i'm saying. Your thoughts?
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