Super Mario Bros: “The French love our VF”

Without “star-talent”, Mario’s VF highlights professional dubbing actors: Pierre Tessier, Jérémie Covillault, Audrey Sourdive, Donald Reignoux, Benoît Du Pac…

While the gamers wait Super Mario Wonder on a firm footing, the animated film adaptation Super Mario Bros. is available on My Canal. Notice to subscribers, do you plan to (re)see it in VO or VF?

Last spring, the film caused a sensation, attracting audiences in droves to theaters. It is also the biggest success of 2023 in France, with 7 million admissions, and if it has been doubled in the rest of the world by barbieits triumph is no less phenomenal, with more than a billion dollars in revenue.

When it was released, we devoted this article to the French voices of the various key characters in the film, which is inspired by all the games in this video game franchise. If this adaptation received mixed reviews upon its release, with some admiring its visual beauty, while others saw it as nothing more than a big advertisement for Nintendo, everyone who saw it in French agrees that the team took particular care of its dubbing. Here are the details of its manufacture.

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News of April 18, 2023: Super Mario Bros.the new animated film from the Illumination studio (Minions) is a hit. In ten days he has already become the biggest success of 2023 worldwide, with 678 million dollars in revenue. In France, it crossed 3 million admissions this weekend. A majority of which were recorded for VF screenings, reveals BFM TV. And this dubbing is very well received by the public, despite (or rather thanks to?) its lack of “star talent”.

Jérôme Lachasse gives the floor to the dubbing actors who lent their voices to Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser and the others in the French adaptation of the very popular Nintendo video games, and it appears that it is following the reception very positive about the first trailer by the fans that this VF could become reality.

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Released last October, this first video shared by the Universal studio highlighted stars in original version, notably Chris Pratt as Mario and Jack Black as Bowser. Then in a second trailer revealed a month later, we discovered Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya-Taylor Joy as Princess Peach, etc.

In French, there are no movie or singing stars, nor YouTubers specializing in video games: all the voices have been recorded by dubbing professionals. Pierre Tessier, who we know in particular for Deadpool, was thus chosen to dub Mario, Jérémie Covillault, who we often hear on Tom Hardy for Benedict Cumberbatch, becomes Bowser, Audrey Sourdive, known for the role of Abby in The Last of Us and who has dubbed Anya Taylor-Joy several times in VF, doubles here Peach, Donald Reignoux (Titeuf, Spider-Man…) inherits Kamel and Benoît Du Pac, alias Shadow in Sonic, lends his voice to Luigi. Everything was overseen by Valérie Siclay, who recently worked on the VF of Bad Guys for the same studio, as artistic director of dubbing.

She says she called on Pierre Tessier and Jérémie Covillault to dub the first trailer without thinking that they would then be kept for the final VF, because often, the trailers for big animated films are dubbed before the voice casting. official French is not involved. And star-talents are then added to the distribution.

The video has barely been posted, the public reaction is enormous, even outside France: if Chris Pratt is criticized for his monotonous tone, which is too reminiscent of his way of overtaking Emmett in The Great Lego Adventure, Pierre Tessier is praised for his lively dubbing of Mario. Valérie Siclay then suggests that the production keep them for the French version of the film and also hire the actors who will dub the following teasers.

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“We were on our ass”, exclaims Benoît Du Pac about the enthusiasm of the spectators upon discovering this first teaser. “It happened so quickly, adds Pierre Tessier. Nobody expected that. It felt like we were launching something into space. It was huge.” Jérémie Covillault then added: “In the United States, everyone thought Pierre Tessier’s French version was better than Chris Pratt’s. There was a lot of questioning. It’s historic!”

“VF fans were quick to go online and create a buzz saying they would never see the film if they cast star talent, remembers Benoît Du Pac. I think it put some pressure on me. They had already taken a scud from the fans with Sonic (voiced by Malik Bentalha, editor’s note). They were afraid of a new bad buzz. (Universal, Illumination and Nintendo) were a little drawn in despite themselves and a little overwhelmed by the buzz. We were so, so happy to make it to the end. (…) The French love our VF. They realize that we are not distorting the film.” “We have a real tradition of dubbing in France, unlike other countries, considers Audrey Sourdive. Some stars are excellent, but voice actors don’t have to be shadow actors.”

“It was Valérie Siclay who managed to convince Nintendo and Universal to hire dubbing professionals,” then says Jérémie Covillault. The interested party confirms: “We were taken by surprise by this craze. From the second trailer, we were very careful to try to keep the same people. All the actors did tests validated by Universal France, Universal United States, Illumination France , Illumination United States and Nintendo. On each stage, there were five levels of validation. I looked, while taking into account the original version, for voices and actors who would bring something particular to the universe of Mario.”

She nevertheless recalls the importance of calling on star-talents on certain projects, because this “offers a certain visibility. Starification has brought respect to our profession.” Finally, she insists on the fact that dubbing work from an already existing original version is a very different job from pure French version creation: “In VO, it’s not dubbing. It’s character creation. They have their own rhythm. We, in VF, we have to blend into an already existing character. It’s a more complicated job than pure creation. We must take the rhythm of the actor and try to stick as closely as possible to his intentions.”

Pierre Tessier details how he was specifically inspired by the dubbing of Chris Pratt, but also by the French voice of Mario in the games, Charles Martinet, to create “her” hero: “We listened to Martinet’s voices and I tried to get as close as possible to his sounds and to offer something joyful and playful.” All in “sticking to the game and intentions” of its American model.

The team hopes that the very enthusiastic reception to this successful dubbing “will make things happen”even if they are aware of not being safe from a change of voice in the sequel, as has just happened on Spider-Gwen among the competition: Sony had hired Camélia Jordana for Spider-Man: New Generationin 2018, but this same character will have the voice of Shirine Boutella in the sequels.

So this is the Multiverse? 🕷️🕸️@StephaneBak, @ShirineBoutella and Mathieu Kassovitz respectively dub the voices of Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy and Miguel O’Hara in #SpiderManAcrossTheSpiderVerseMay 31 at the cinema. pic.twitter.com/HPqPCehQyT

— Sony Pictures France (@SonyPicturesFr) April 7, 2023