Fans are making the Super Mario Bros. movie. Discovery fueling speculation of a last-minute swap

The movie Super Mario Bros. premiered earlier this week, and viewers were quick to note the film’s star-studded soundtrack, which includes songs licensed by AC/DC, the Beastie Boys and the Electric Light Orchestra. While listening to the film’s full soundtrack, however, viewers were quick to note that one of the film’s original tracks may have been cut at the last minute to make room for A-ha’s “Take On Me.”

Shortly after the film premiered, viewers noticed that the track “Drivin’ Me Bananas” was cut entirely from the film despite the interesting interjection of both the Donkey Kong Country theme and the game “DK Island Swing”, which was pointed out by user Twitter @KRoolCountry. .

Twitter user @_Slunky then edited the track into the driving scene from the movie that has the “Take On Me” soundtrack. In their video, the jazzy, energetic song seems to fit the scene perfectly, fueling speculation that it was made for this scene but was cut at the last minute and replaced by A-ha’s song.

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It had to be a last minute decision, this track was literally tailor made for this scene, there was NO reason to replace it with “Take on me” when they had made a track that fit better. I am confused pic.twitter.com/BNCsP4VMYo

— sluhn kee (@_Slunky) April 7, 2023

“It had to be a last minute decision, this track was literally tailored for this scene, there was no reason to replace it with ‘Take On Me’ when they had a better track made,” said @_Slunky.

Other fans chimed in, calling the Mario movie’s reliance on licensed tracks over its own soundtrack “lazy.”

“It’s completely unnecessary when Mario has so many amazing tracks to sample, it unnecessarily distracts from the tone and is just stupidly derivative because they first use songs used in famous movies,” said Twitter user @hEnereyG.

Mario spoilers:

No joke, this awesome piece of music isn’t in the movie, it was cut to play Take On Me. This obvious song choice was one of the most painfully lazy moments of the film, and it’s even more annoying knowing that they previously had an excellent score that replaced https://t.co/MhLalyTAF2

— Henry Gilbert (@hEnereyG) April 7, 2023

IGN has reached out to Universal for comment.

In our 8/10 review, we said that Super Mario Bros. Movie “revels in infectious energy and clever video game callbacks.” Universal estimated that the film would make $141 million by the end of its opening weekend, although some viewers did not like its plot and one composer is upset that his work was not heard in the film.

Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they’ve contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazolner.