The Mario Bros. Movie Nearly Explained Why There Are Floating Blocks Everywhere
As someone who grew up with Mario jumping from one series of floating blocks to another, I never really questioned why there appear to be gravity-defying construction materials in the Mario universe. But I can absolutely see where someone unfamiliar with the Mario franchise might want to know why those blocks are floating around in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
The movie, like the games, never really explains why the Mushroom Kingdom's blocks float. However, they very nearly had an explanation that made it into the film. It's only because Illumination's CEO is "allergic to exposition" that the explanation was cut from the final release.
Related: Why Chris Pratt's Movie Mario Works
In an interview with Variety, co-director Aaron Horvath shared his theory for why the Mushroom Kingdom's blocks are floating. "Our idea was that there’s a mineral that’s natural to the Mushroom Kingdom, which we call ‘floatanium,’ because it sounded funny to us," he said. "The Toads mine it and transform it into these blocks and use them for construction purposes."
Yes, "floatanium" very nearly became part of the Mario canon, but Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri was unwilling to slow the Mario Movie down just to explain why all the blocks are floating around. After all, there's a rainbow racetrack, a bunch of walking and talking mushrooms, and a terrifying turtle-lizard-thing that breathes fire and wants to take over the universe, and none of these are ever really explained. Why would some floating blocks need 30 seconds devoted to justifying their existence? They float. End of explanation.
What us old-school Mario fans really need is an explainer on how this film ever got greenlit at all after the disastrous '90s movie. Variety noted that
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