Nintendo has acquired production company CG Dynamo Pictures and will rename it “Nintendo Pictures”, the company announced. The new subsidiary “will focus on visual content development using Nintendo IP” and “visual content planning and production, including CG animation”. The company’s IMDB page lists credits for dozens of titles, including motion capture work on Death Stranding and personas 5and post-production work on Metroid: Other Mr.
The acquisition comes as Nintendo prepares for the biggest cinematic release in years; an animated film based on the Super Mario Bros. franchise. with Chris Pratt. The film is currently slated for release in the spring of next year, nearly thirty years after the last major film adaptation: the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. A live adaptation of Detective Pikachu based on the Pokémon franchise was released in 2019.
The acquisition comes amid a flurry of interest in turning video games into movies and TV shows. A second animated movie based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise was released earlier this year, and a TV show based on Naughty Dog’s The last of us is currently in production for HBO. Sony, which also recently released a movie based on its Uncharted games, indicated that it wants to continue expanding its PlayStation IP outside of video games at a recent Investor Day.
Nintendo’s shareholder notice says it is acquiring 100% of the outstanding shares of Dynamo Pictures, which will become a wholly owned subsidiary of the video game company. He expects the acquisition to close on October 3, 2022.