Prior to the movie’s upcoming release in Japan later this month, video game manufacturer Nintendo has revealed that Spike, the foreman who appears in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” has had his Japanese name modified.
The character, originally introduced as Mario’s adversary in the 1980s video game “Wrecking Crew,” will be renamed from “Blackie” to “Spike” in Japanese, just as he has been known to Western fans for the previous three decades.
Only stating that the new Japanese name will be the same as the one used in Europe and the United States, Nintendo did not immediately give an explanation for the decision to change the name, which may be seen as a racist epithet.
The Super Mario Bros movie is already a blockbuster globally
“The name in ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie,’ which will be released on April 28, 2023, will be ‘Spike’ as well,” the company added in a tweet posted to its official Japanese Twitter account last Thursday.
In the 1985 Wrecking Crew series, Foreman Spike made his debut as a builder and Mario’s bitter adversary. He transitioned to the big screen in this year’s “Super Mario Bros. Movie,” where he plays Mario and his brother Luigi’s previous employer before they left their construction jobs to launch their own plumbing company.
Chris Pratt plays Mario, Charlie Day plays Luigi, and Anya Taylor-Joy plays Princess Peach in the film, which earned more than $200 million in the US and Canada for its five-day opening run and an estimated $377 million globally.
According to a blurb on the film’s website, the brothers stray into a “magical new world,” and when they become separated, “Mario embarks on an epic quest to find Luigi.”
In recent years, Mario and Luigi have appeared in a number of video games made by Nintendo, such as Mario Kart, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Mario Party.
Nintendo reports that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which debuted on the Switch in 2017 and has already sold 52 million copies globally, continues to be the company’s best-selling game.