Once upon a time in a land called “2015,” Nintendo apparently considered making a TV series based on its lesser-known Star Fox franchise. Now that The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a huge success at the box office, raking in $1.3 billion and counting, it’s time for Nintendo to revisit the project — if only to boost its own IP.
The story begins, surprisingly, with CollegeHumor. In an interview a few years back with The Serf Times YouTube channel, comedian Adam Conover revealed that his former employers at CollegeHumor were working directly with rockstar game designer Shigeru Miyamoto on a claymation Star Fox series based on the stop-motion work in Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox film adaptation.
The idea itself was based on a beloved 2011 CollegeHumor sketch, depicting Fox McCloud himself having a bit of an existential crisis:
Unfortunately, a while later, Netflix decided to leak their plans for a live-action Legend of Zelda series in the Wall Street Journal, which gave Nintendo cold feet about getting into the adaptation business altogether. The video game giant said the leak was “not based on correct information” and essentially canned the Zelda project, per Nintendo Life.
In response, Conover explained, Netflix “freaked out” and canceled Star Fox as well, presumably because it was under the assumption it had poked the Goomba and was in danger of overwhelming Nintendo, which is known for being very particular about how its properties are handled. (This is probably why it took this long to get a Super Mario Bros. film after the 1993 movie turned out so…interestingly.)
Why is it the right time for Nintendo to pick up the Star Fox adaptation?
It’s a shame that one leak killed two different Nintendo adaptations, but now that The Super Mario Bros. Movie has become an unqualified success, perhaps it’s time for Nintendo to cautiously reapproach the swirling vortex of Hollywood and get something else made. That way, Nintendo could make more truckloads of cash via the adaptation itself as well as spark renewed interest in its secondary franchises — which could lead to more games.
Star Fox would benefit greatly from renewed interest. The original game, launched for the Super Nintendo in 1993, is only the second Nintendo title ever to approximate 3D graphics and the first-ever console game to use three-dimensional, polygonal models.
It’s widely considered one of the best games of its time, and Star Fox reached unprecedented levels of hype a few years later when a groundbreaking reboot was released on the Nintendo 64, which everyone (but us) somehow had access to back in the mid-1990s. We jealously watched our friends become masters at barrel rolls and U-turns, while we were stuck with our old Sega Genesis playing Sonic 3D Blast, which wasn’t in 3D at all!
However, since the Nintendo 64 release, the Fox’s star has dimmed, with subsequent games releasing to lesser fanfare — and no new releases at all for the Switch. But a TV adaptation could change all that.
After all, the game focuses on a host of obscenely cute anthropomorphic critters zooming around a colorful galaxy and fighting for freedom. What’s not to like? A successful TV adaptation could reignite interest in the Star Fox brand beyond hardcore gamers, and it could also give Nintendo a secure foothold in the TV space while they decide whether or not they want to make that Legend of Zelda movie after all.
Come on, Nintendo: Do it for the kids who have fond memories of staying up all night playing Star Fox, and especially for those tragically deprived of doing so.