Nintendo at 40: How the NES Era Led to Hollywood’s Boldest, Most Star-Studded Commercial — 'THE WIZARD'

By Klep Napier |Wearecritix.com

There are moments in entertainment history when technology doesn’t just change how we play, it changes the stories we tell. The mid-1980s was one of those moments. Movie theaters were booming with blockbuster sequels and action heroes, MTV was turning pop stars into icons, and home technology was creeping into everyday life in ways that felt almost futuristic. Yet amid that cultural explosion, the video game industry was on life support. The infamous 1983 crash had gutted consumer trust, leaving aisles of unsold cartridges collecting dust. It was into that uncertain landscape that a little gray box from Japan landed on American shores in October 1985 and changed everything.

The Nintendo Entertainment System didn’t just revive gaming; it redefined it. Its lineup, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid became more than pastimes. They were stories, worlds, and characters with emotional stakes, and they demanded to be part of a bigger conversation. Nintendo wasn’t just selling games, it was shaping pop culture. And as the company’s grip on kids’ imaginations grew, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood came calling.

Enter 1989’s The Wizard, a movie that has since been described with a mix of reverence and wry honesty as the boldest, most star-studded Nintendo commercial ever put on film. But that label undersells just how ambitious the project really was. Directed by Todd Holland (Malcolm in the Middle) and starring Fred Savage, Beau Bridges, Christian Slater, and a young Jenny Lewis, the film followed three kids on a cross-country journey to a video game championship. It was equal parts road trip, family drama, and product showcase capped by one of cinema’s most infamous reveals: the very first public appearance of Super Mario Bros. 3.

For Nintendo, The Wizard was more than a marketing ploy. It was a cultural stake in the ground, proof that gaming had grown too big to stay confined to kids’ bedrooms. For Universal Pictures, it was a chance to tap into an audience Hollywood was still learning how to court: young gamers who saw themselves not just as consumers but as part of a movement. And for the cast, it was a rare opportunity to blend family-friendly storytelling with cutting-edge pop culture. Savage, already beloved from The Wonder Years, cemented his status as a leading teen star, while Lewis, years before her music career took off, became a cult icon among fans who grew up watching The Wizard on VHS.

Of course, not everything went as planned. Critics were lukewarm, and the box office roughly $14 million domestic, didn’t quite match the hype. But the film’s impact can’t be measured in ticket sales alone. It offered a snapshot of a pivotal moment: when gaming stopped being a niche and started becoming mainstream, when a video game reveal could be treated with the same spectacle as a blockbuster trailer, and when Hollywood realized that a joystick could drive a story.

What’s more, The Wizard helped set the stage for the wave of game-to-screen crossovers that followed. From Mortal Kombat to Detective Pikachu, the idea that video games could fuel cinematic narratives owes a debt to that 1989 experiment. Even today’s billion-dollar adaptations, like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, trace their lineage back to a film that dared to merge marketing and moviemaking into one unapologetic package.

For its cast and crew, The Wizard became a unique chapter in their careers. Holland would go on to a prolific directing career in television, while Savage, Bridges, and Slater each leveraged the movie’s visibility into more mature roles. And for Nintendo, the film’s legacy continues to ripple through how it collaborates with filmmakers culminating in its recent animated ventures and expanding cinematic ambitions.

Forty years after that first gray console hit U.S. shelves, the NES’s influence reaches far beyond the living room. It transformed not just how we play, but how we watch and how Hollywood markets, mythologizes, and monetizes the stories built around those games. The Wizard may have been a commercial dressed as a movie, but it was also a moment of pop-culture evolution: a bridge between pixels and pictures, between childhood obsession and cinematic spectacle. And as Nintendo enters its fifth decade, the film remains a reminder of where that story began and just how much further it’s still destined to go.

The Wizard (1989) is currently available to stream or rent in the U.S. via platforms like Apple TV and Amazon Video, and can be watched for free with ads on Tubi.