One criticism that the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" received is that while composer Bryan Tyler collaborated with Nintendo veteran composer Koji Kondo to create a score that incorporates orchestrated rearrangements of iconic songs from the Mario franchise, there were too many moments of Illumination-mandated pop songs replacing the score in certain scenes. The most infamous example of this being the replacement of the original composition "Driving Me Bananas", a medley of songs from the Donkey Kong Country games, with a-ha’s "Take on Me" feeling somewhat out of context.

According to Jamey Scott, who worked in the film's sound department, Tyler fought hard to keep his orchestrated rendition of the Super Star theme in the film over the studio's suggestion of Van Halen's "Jump", and succeeded.