You might have thought since The Super Mario Bros. Movie's theatrical run is starting to wind down, headlines about it would have all but disappeared. You'd have been right about that, had it not been for a screening of the movie for primary school children in Northern Ireland that was briefly interrupted by an image of a partially undressed woman appearing on the screen.
As reported by the BBC, police have been brought in to investigate after the incident occurred at Derry's Waterside Theater last Friday. The indecent image reportedly appeared on the screen for a few seconds, which was certainly enough to scar a few unfortunate audience members expecting to see Mario and Luigi. The cinema has apologised for what happened but is unaware of how the image came to be shown on its screen.
Waterside Theatre posted on Facebook shortly after the incident. The parents of the children, who were all of primary school age so between seven and 11 years old, were all informed of what happened soon after.
“Waterside Theatre is aware of an unfortunate but serious incident happening today,” the theatre posted on Friday afternoon. “We offer our sincere apologies to all those affected.” The police investigating the incident have requested anyone with relevant information that may help with the investigation to get in touch.
While this is a new first for the Mario Movie, it certainly isn't the first screening issue the Nintendo/Illumination behemoth has encountered since it debuted in cinemas. A network in Argentina aired the movie free of charge. The entire film was also posted on Twitter and remained on the site for longer than you might think considering how swift Nintendo usually is when it comes to taking down content shown through unofficial channels.
Even though people continue to go and see Mario on the big screen, it seems likely its box office numbers have settled for now. Sitting at number 16 in the highest-grossing movies of all time with more than $1.3 billion, the only animated movie to have grossed more is Frozen 2. There is a real chance Mario moves up at least one more spot as kids likely flock to the cinema during the summer holidays with less than $5 million to go until it surpasses Black Panther.
It was always likely Nintendo would make more movies, but the money grossed by its first venture has pretty much confirmed that. There have been rumours Donkey Kong will get his own spinoff, and also talk of Illumination having a crack at a Legend of Zelda movie. The latter has generated a mixed response from fans, but following the success of Tears of the Kingdom, there has never been a better time to see if Zelda can be adapted for the big screen.