Estimating the potential auction price of film memorabilia is something that even experts can struggle to get right. With so many variables at play, it is possible for items to sell for much lower than expectations or take off with a bidding war that pushes a sale price to more than anyone imagined possible. The latter is what happened with a recent auction involving a Super Mario Bros. costume from the 1993 Bob Hoskins cult movie.
A costume from the box office flop was recently sold as part of Prop Store’s Planet Hollywood auction, which included many items that have been housed in the famous restaurant chain’s collection of replicas and props. Mixed in among signed posters, Superman costumes, and pieces of Ninja Turtles was a Fungus Unit officer’s screen-used costume that destroyed its pre-sale estimate of $800 to $1,600 to sell for an eye-watering $10,000. That’s right, this was not a hero costume by one of the movie’s leads, or even a recurring named character, but a background character that appeared on screen for a few seconds.
In the movie’s warped, dystopian vision of Dinohattan, the Fungus Unit are the radiation-suited officers of the local police force tasked with decontamination duty. Their appearance happens when Mario and Luigi are arrested by President Koopa’s men and taken for a power-wash and “de-fungus” procedure. The brothers are subjected to this comically brutal process by the aforementioned Fungus Unit, and the scene then quickly moves on. In short, their on-screen presence is as minor as it could be, which begs the question of how and why it sold for so much more than expected?
Studios with a flop on their hands didn’t usually worry too much about preserving props and costumes, meaning items used in the production regularly end up being dumped, destroyed, or sold off immediately for repurposing. Those that do survive for decades in good condition continue becoming among some of the scarcest pieces of memorabilia out there. We all know that translates into them being worth a substantial amount of money whenever they do make an appearance at auction.
The Fungus Unit officer’s suit doesn’t look much, was not worn by a famous star, and is pretty much forgettable in all respects. In the end, though, it is an authentic, screen-used costume from a Mario movie, and no matter how bad Super Mario Bros. was, no matter how big a flop it was, that still counts for something with collectors. Even so, the result highlights one of the recurring inconsistencies in the memorabilia market, when insignificant pieces sell for more than some of the most celebrated movie franchises of all time. It is never about popularity and is all about obscurity.
This Fungus Unit officer’s costume selling for over 10 times its low estimate all comes down to the few examples of this costume out there in the world. Ultimately, the sale is another reminder that in the world of screen-used collectibles, logic does not always apply.
Would you pay $10K for this costume? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
