Despite featuring a cameo appearance by just about every other animated movie and video-game character, one well-known plumber will be absent from Ralph Breaks The Internet. While its predecessor Wreck-It Ralph featured his archnemesis Bowser as well as his friend Sonic The Hedgehog, the latter of which will return in the sequel, Mario himself never appeared.
In a recent interview with Inside the Magic, story-artist Jason Hand refuted rumours that the sequel will feature the world's favourite plumber simply on the basis of Disney being unable to secure the rights to the character.
Some of the stuff was that we don’t have rights to certain characters, because we’re working in a world of other people’s media. It’s like, that would have been really funny if we could have Mario in here doing this part, but it doesn’t end up working out because of that, and it’s fine and the story doesn’t actually end up needing it. But as individual bits, it’s like “That’s a great ‘Saturday Night Live’ bit!” Rich [Moore] and Phil [Johnston, the movie’s co-directors] are pretty much full of those things so it’s an endless amount of great ideas, honestly.
The interviewer proceeded to point out to Hand that it's odd that they were however able to feature Bowser, to which Hand simply agreed. Perhaps this is on the basis that Mario does have his own animated film coming up from Illumination Entertainment, and Nintendo would like to avoid confusion.
What do you think of Hand's statement? Would you like to have seen a cameo appearance by Mario?
Ralph Breaks The Internet smashes into theatres on November 21st.