Nintendo’s movie universe could have a lot more movies than just Chris Pratt’s Mario.
Nintendo is buying the visual production company Dynamo Pictures, which is based in Tokyo and specializes in CG animation and motion capture. Thursday, Nintendo said it would buy Dynamo and change the name of the company to Nintendo Pictures after the deal is done (which is expected to happen in October).
Dynamo Pictures has worked on a number of TV shows and games, like Yuri! on Ice and Nier Replicant ver. 1.22474487139 and Death Stranding. The studio has also worked on the Pikmin Short Movies series with Nintendo in the past.
According to Nintendo’s filing, the goal of buying this new studio is to “strengthen the planning and production structure of visual content in the Nintendo group” and focus on making “visual content using Nintendo IP.” Even though that statement isn’t very clear, the move shouldn’t come as a surprise since video game studios have been putting more effort into making movies and TV shows to support their most popular franchises.
Sony released Uncharted earlier this year, and they are already working on a series for HBO based on The Last of Us and a series for Peacock based on the Twisted Metal series. Riot Games and Fortiche Productions made the animated League of Legends show Arcane, and Riot Games put a lot of money into the show after the first season came out on Netflix. Sega, which used to compete with Nintendo, has also put a lot of money on movies and animation, with several Sonic the Hedgehog products already out or in the works.
In fact, Nintendo’s announcement last year of a new Super Mario Bros. movie, which will be made by Illumination and star Chris Pratt, Seth Rogen, and Anya Taylor-Joy, showed that it was getting into the Hollywood game. Nintendo could use Dynamo for more than just making movies and TV shows. It could also be used to make new content for its games or even its theme parks. All of these would be considered “visual content” by Nintendo and would be areas where Dynamo has a lot of experience.