‘Wreck-It Ralph’ Comic Con Panel: Nintendo Denied Disney Use of the Super Mario Bros, King Candy Announced, Skrillex Doing Music

Director Rich Moore, Sarah Silverman and John C. Reilly at the “Wreck-It Ralph” Comic Con 2012 PanelThursday at the San Diego Comic Con, Walt Disney Animation held a panel for Wreck-It Ralph in the eponymous Hall H. The panel consisted of director Rich Moore, John C. Reilly (voice of Ralph) and Sarah Silverman (voice of Vanellope Von Schweetz) and was hosted by Chris Hardwick.

In addition to showing 10 minutes of partially completed footage from the film, Moore also revealed more about the video game character cameos, which video game fans have been drooling over in the first trailer. Moore mentioned that Disney originally wanted a “certain moustachioed little plumber guy” aka Super Mario, but Nintendo wanted too much money for the rights to him and his brother, Luigi, who Moore joked “wanted even more money.”

This is very reminscent of what happened with Mattel and Barbie during the first Toy Story, which we talked about in episode 5. Pixar originally wanted Barbie to be Woody’s girlfriend, but Mattel refused. Mattel later realized their mistake after the huge success of the film (and its related toy merchandise) and allowed abundant use of its flagship doll in Toy Story 2 and 3.

Regarding Nintendo, you think the company would gobble up all the free publicity for its characters: it seems to be an honor to be included in this film. The buzz about the video game character cameos was insane after they were revealed at CinemaCon. But, corporations have their own motives. Oh well, at least Bowser made his way into the film.

It was also revealed that Alan Tudyk is voicing King Candy, the ruler of the sugar-coated go-kart racing game Sugar Rush. The announcement got quite a cheer from the crowd, as he’s pretty popular for his roles in films such as A Knight’s Tale and Dodgeball. King Candy is on the cover of “The Art of Wreck-It Ralph”, but this Disney’s first formal announcement of the character. Sarah Silverman also divulged more of her character Vanellope Von Schweetz saying:

“My character is Vanellope von Schweetz. She’s kind of on the outskirts of the game. She’s a glitch. When she meets Ralph they’re kind of at odds and they realize they’re not so different. They’re the same, only different sizes. The thing I love about it is I think it kind of teaches you her glitch, her greatest kind of shame, her fault kind of becomes her greatest asset.”

Chelsea and Morgan saw a test screening of Wreck-It Ralph and recorded a spoiler-free podcast review of the film, but decided to hold off talking about King Candy and Vanellope’s glitch status.

Lastly, Moore shared that themusic for the Hero’s Duty segment of the film will be written by Skrillex, the famous dubstep DJ.

 

Check out the video of the entire panel below. Also, as a bonus, we included an hour-long video from the “Wreck-It Ralph: The Art of Story” panel, which includes a panel with Rich Moore and a bunch of Disney story artists. Enjoy!

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