The sequel is here, and so is a lot of Nintendo business
Nintendo and Illumination’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie opened in cinemas this week, bringing back Chris Pratt and Charlie Day as the Italian-American plumbing duo, with Anya Taylor-Joy returning as Princess Peach and Brie Larson joining the cast as Princess Rosalina.
The story sends Mario, Luigi and the rest of the crew across the cosmos to deal with Bowser’s son, Bowser Jr., voiced by Benny Safdie. Like the game series that inspired it, the film is packed with references from across the wider Nintendo universe, because apparently one movie was not enough to contain all of that.
But the biggest talking point from the film’s promotional tour this week was not a space battle, a Goomba, or even Star Fox. It was Charlie Day answering a question in a way that instantly gave the internet something else to do.
Charlie Day names Luigi Mangione
While the cast were in Tokyo for the press tour, they appeared on the Tintoria Podcast. Day was asked: “Who is your favorite Luigi in recent American history?”
Day repeated the phrase, “In recent American history,” apparently taking in the full scope of what the question was asking, while Keegan-Michael Key, who voices Toad, laughed loudly and Taylor-Joy facepalmed.
“Well, me, first of all,” Day said, before adding: “Luigi Mangione.”
The clip quickly spread online, which was probably predictable once the second Luigi was named. Mangione is the American man at the center of one of the most controversial criminal cases in recent U.S. memory. He has been accused of killing Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, in December 2024.
The case has sparked fierce debate, with some people portraying Mangione as a hero because prosecutors say he targeted Thompson as a symbolic attack on the much-criticized American private healthcare system. Mangione is currently awaiting federal trial.
For a studio like Nintendo, which usually likes its family-friendly image to remain very clean and very uncomplicated, the comment was never going to be ideal background noise.
The internet noticed immediately
Reaction online was, predictably, all over the place. On Reddit, one person wrote, “He’s so real for that.”
Another said, “Seriously, I thought he was gonna leave it at ‘me’ and laugh it off, but then he just explicitly said Luigi Mangione,” while a third commented, “Oh boy, Nintendo isn’t gonna like that answer.”
There was also the kind of joke that tells you the internet has had too much coffee.
“One Luigi fixes plumbing, another one fixes late stage capitalism. All Luigis are civil servants,” one user wrote. Another added, “Interesting promotional strategy for a children’s movie!”
To be fair, a lot of the interview was already strange in a way that seemed almost designed to distract from the movie itself. Taylor-Joy was asked, “Could you give us three reasons why monarchy is better than democracy?”
Key was then asked whether Toad should “start a revolution to overthrow the kingdom and, you know, and make it a republic.”
That led one viewer to write, “The whole interview is genuinely fking hilarious.”** Another said the jump from one odd question to the next gave them whiplash and made them laugh like an idiot, which is probably not the official unit of measure Nintendo had in mind for this campaign.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is in cinemas now.
