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Nintendo has confirmed that Donkey Kong's new design in Donkey Kong Bananza was actually what inspired his look in the movie, not the other way around.
When the Nintendo Switch 2 was first revealed with a tiny snippet of what we would later find out is Mario Kart World, people were taken aback by the new look for Donkey Kong, with many saying they had changed him to match his movie design. However, Nintendo has confirmed that this isn't the case, and in fact, Bananza was the source of inspiration for the design used in the movie.
In a new edition of Nintendo's "Ask the Director" interview series, Donkey Kong Bananza producer (and Super Mario Odyssey director) Kenta Motokura and design manager Daisuke Watanabe spoke about the new design for DK. Watanabe said, "We strove for a design that would get to the core of what makes Donkey Kong who he is, bringing out his unique characteristics and appeal."
Motokura spoke about the team returning to the classic Donkey Kong design used in the arcade days, saying, "While overhauling the design, we returned to where it had all started. We took Miyamoto-san's original Donkey Kong as the basis, adding design elements from Donkey Kong Bananza here and there."
Motokura added, "Outside of this game, Donkey Kong has recently appeared in The Super Mario Bros. Movie released in 2023, and in Mario Kart World, but there's a basic character design which provided the foundation for those versions of Donkey Kong." When asked by the interviewer if that meant the movie design was inspired by Bananza, he said, "That's correct. Donkey Kong Bananza sparked the creation of a design which I think better conveys the new Donkey Kong."
Personally, I had figured this was the case. There were rumours about the Mario Odyssey team working on a Donkey Kong game as far back as 2021 (which is when the game moved to Switch 2), so a new design out of the blue immediately had me connecting dots… or I was just in copium mode, but I won in the end.
