Nintendo has acquired CG producer Dynamo Pictures and will rename it “Nintendo Pictures,” the company announced. The new subsidiary “will focus on visual content development using Nintendo IP” and on “visual content planning and production including CG animation”. The company’s IMDB page lists the credits for dozens of titles, including motion capture work on Death Stranding and Persona 5, and post-production work on Metroid: Other M.
The acquisition comes as Nintendo is gearing up for the most important movie release in recent years; an animated film based on the Super Mario Bros. franchise. starring Chris Pratt. The film is currently slated for release in the spring of next year, nearly thirty years after the last major film adaptation: the 1993 live action Super Mario Bros. starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. In 2019, a live-action adaptation of Detective Pikachu based on the Pokémon franchise was released.
While Nintendo prepares for the premiere of the movie Super Mario
The acquisition comes amid great interest in turning video games into movies and TV shows. A second animated film based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise was released earlier this year, and a television program based on Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us is currently in production for HBO. Sony, which also recently released a film based on its Uncharted games, has indicated it wants to continue expanding its PlayStation IP outside of video games on a recent investor day.
Nintendo’s notice to shareholders says it is acquiring 100 percent of the outstanding shares of Dynamo Pictures, which will become a wholly owned subsidiary of the video game company. The acquisition is expected to close on October 3, 2022.