The Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie hit theaters earlier this week. In celebration of this, Ben Schwartz, the voice actor for Sonic in the movies, recently spoke with Variety to talk about a number of things.
During this interview, Schwartz revealed his hopes for a Super Smash Bros. crossover movie. What’s interesting about this is that he was only asked about a potential Mario & Sonic at The Olympic Games adaption, but ended up talking about this Super Smash Bros. concept instead.
“What I really think could be bananas is if we get a ‘Super Smash Bros.’ spinoff, but that would take so many different studios being kind to each other at the same time,” said Schwartz. “But the idea that we get to build our own franchise that lives on its own, and we have so many characters within this franchise, that we can do three, four, five, six — that’s what I’m concentrating on and that’s what I love.”
“What I really think could be bananas is if we get a ‘Super Smash Bros.’ spinoff, but that would take so many different studios being kind to each other at the same time.” — Ben Schwartz
Such a crossover would certainly be comparable to the Avengers movies present in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While Schwartz himself would obviously be onboard with this sort of idea, he does not that he would require permission if such a thing were to come up.
“If you want to have a battle royale with a bunch of people we all love in video games, because I’m a video game nerd, I would not be against it,” continued Schwartz. “I would see if Paramount would let me go play.”
It’s then pointed out that Nintendo is already working on a “Legend of Zelda” film. Schwartz believes that this could be another piece of the puzzle needed to make this dream a reality.
“We’re getting closer. There’s a ‘Pikachu’ [Detective Pikachu] movie that already exists,” said Schwarts. “So if you can get all these studios that oftentimes compete with each other to make the same movie and somehow split the profits, that would be wonderful.”
“So if you can get all these studios that oftentimes compete with each other to make the same movie and somehow split the profits, that would be wonderful.” — Ben Schwartz
As many of us already know, Illumination did reportedly pitch a Super Smash Bros. movie to Nintendo after The Super Mario Bros. Movie became one of the highest grossing animated movies of all time. Unfortunately, it’s unknown whether or not this proposal was considered or not by Nintendo.
Many studios have taken notice of the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though many have tried to replicate this crossover formula, none of them have been successful thus far.
Needless to say, the concept of a Super Smash Bros. movie has been on the mind of fans considering the sudden success of movies like Sonic the Hedgehog and The Super Mario Bros. movie. Before these films were dropped, video game movie adaptions have notoriously been reviewed poorly in most cases.
Who knows if this sort of thing can actually happen though considering the amount of collaboration that would be needed between these studios. We’ll have to see if this idea is ever actually able to manifest in the future.