Nintendo is officially developing a live-action Legend Of Zelda movie
Wes Ball, director of the Maze Runner series, is already attached to direct
Aux News Nintendo
Well, Nintendo’s officially got the movie bug. After The Super Mario Bros. Movie made a ton of money earlier this year, the legendary video game developer has accepted the value in farming out its iconic franchises to Hollywood—not counting the monsters from Pokémon, which are their own thing. As announced this evening, Nintendo is beginning development on a live-action Legend Of Zelda movie, with series co-creator Shigeru Miyamoto and regular Hollywood franchise guy Avi Arad on board as producers. Wes Ball, director of the new Planet Of the Apes movie that seemingly came out of nowhere last week (plus the Maze Runner movies), is already attached to direct.
And, in a fun detail that might make video game fans do a double-take, the film will be co-financed by Nintendo and Sony Pictures, with Nintendo footing more than half of the bill and Sony—the PlayStation company, even if that’s a totally different division—handling worldwide distribution.
That’s pretty much all we know, but it seems at least mildly encouraging that Nintendo is very involved. The company has a reputation for being very precious with its many little guys, and while the distracting needle-drops and Chris Pratt stuff in the Mario movie was a little jarring, it did at least feel a whole lot like a real Super Mario thing. That’ll be harder to pull off with Zelda, especially in live-action, but hopefully everyone here knows what they’re doing. (That hope is based largely on the assumption that nobody involved could possibly think that Chris Pratt should play Link.)
Then again, he does sometimes have blonde-ish hair, and Link famously never really speaks anyway… How is Pratt with a sword? And how does he look in a little green tunic with a long hat? We might be onto something here….
49 Comments
Tom Holland for link?
wow great another movie based on a video game that is a pastiche of cliches and has a protagonist with no discernible personality or motivation
Boo hoo.
well excuuuuuuuuse me RealTimothyDalton
Oof, I would’ve preferred an animated Zelda. Animation is getting so creative and I can’t remember the last live-action epic that looked good. The director of the Maze Runner doesn’t inspire confidence either.
I’m pretty sure it will be animated the idea that it’s live-action seems made-up by the A.V. Club by the headline. Which… well I’m here so
Why live-action? Why try and recreate the beautiful art direction of (most of) the games in real life, when animation is RIGHT FRIGGIN THERE?Is it seriously cheaper? Or do they think it will get more accolades? Or did they go back in time and get 1998 Leo to play Link? What is the thought process here?
There’s Legend right there to serve a blueprint
Zelda movie? Hmmm…Oh. Live action? It’s gonna suck.Oh. Maze Runner Director, Jurassic World writer, and Avai Arad? Yeah, it’s REALLY gonna suck.
I’m calling it now, Timotheé Chalamet will be cast, or at least audition for the role of Link.I personally think Cailee Spaeny would be a fantastic choice for Link though.Idris Elba would be great as Ganondorf. Or Vincent Donofrio. He’s just really good as a bad guy(A la King Pin)I hope they don’t cast Millie Bobby Brown as Zelda. Maybe Jenna Ortega? Although I couldn’t picture her as a blonde. And I wouldn’t really want her to change how she looks to “fit” the role too much. So make Zelda dark haired.
She could be the Gerudo leader.
I think Hunter Schaefer would be dope as Zelda, and there is something very trans about the games anyway. Doubt it would happen, but still be cool.
Wow, Hunter Schaefer is an *incredible* choice I would’ve never thought about. Aside from having the look down already, she has a vulnerability with an undercurrent of quiet strength that is perfect for Zelda.
I just want Danny Devito as Tingle and I can die a happy man.
Wolf Finnhard and Kiernan Shipka
Just cast a young woman as Link and watch the internet explode
At first I was like “Hey! Listen!” but then I was like “Well excuuuse meee princess!”
Jonathan Banks as The Screaming Foreman in Kakariko Village.
Yes.
I want a movie that’s true to the games. Two hours of catching chickens, harvesting plants, guiding lost villagers, and generally solving all of the petty problems of everybody in Hyrule. Then 10 minutes for the main story.
Audiences will watch a fifteen minute sequence of Link chasing a cricket and they’ll like it, goddamnit!
The only way to do this right in live-action is do it as a trilogy, give it an LOTR size budget, build a ton of massive, practical sets and shoot on location as much as possible. You explore a different region/culture in each trilogy – Zora, Goron, Gerudo. You have to treat it with gravitas and not go all Taika Waititi with it either. And I think you cast a relative unknown for Link. Zelda and Ganon could be name actors, Anya Taylor-Joy and Dave Bautista being the first names that come to mind, but Link would work best as an unknown.Each film Link is trying to get a piece of the triforce before Ganon can, giving you a different MacGuffin in each film. Sort of like Thanos and the Infinity Stones. First film starts with Ganon escaping from imprisonment, he gains all three pieces of the triforce by the end of the 2nd film, third film is a Hyrulian War against Ganon and his forces.You have to model Link on a character like Mad Max in Fury Road or Ryan Gosling in Drive. And you have to deviate from the games enough to surround Link with enough compelling side characters to carry the movie. He needs a sidekick, a sort of amalgam of Midna and Navi. And I think you make Zelda a co-lead. Link, Zelda, and the Midna/Navi character form your core trio, and you have other Zora/Goron/Gerudo/Rito characters aiding them in their different regions. I think you leave the time travel stuff out of it and make it a straight up fantasy epic. I think you can bring in the Dark World or Twilight Realm for an extra layer of fantasy, explore the whole parallel dimension element, but I think time travel over complicates things. But there is so much lore across all the games that you can pick and choose various elements from each and put together a great cinematic narrative. I have very little faith they’ll even come close to anything like this, but I hope they do.And yes…I’ve been thinking about this for a very long time lol.Also…Brian Cox as Hestu.
I’m on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Please don’t make it a bloated, convoluted mess. The core of Zelda’s storylines is charmingly simple. Give me one complete movie in the 90 minutes to 2 hour range and I’m happy.
yeah the legend of zelda movie should be a fun, breezy and mostly for kids.
I’m with you; more along the lines of the D&D flick from a couple years ago.
I think trying to cram everything into one movie has a greater danger of overcomplicating the film vs giving it room to breathe across multiple. I don’t think 2.5 hours is enough time to adequately tell the core story of Link and Zelda protecting Hyrule from Ganon while also allowing for enough world building to depict the Zora, the Gorons, Gerudo, whatever version of Forest people they choose, multiple dungeons. I don’t know if I would describe any of the main entry games as simple in their storytelling.
This is precisely what will not happen.
‘”Each film Link is trying to get a piece of the triforce before Ganon can, giving you a different MacGuffin in each film. Sort of like Thanos and the Infinity Stones. First film starts with Ganon escaping from imprisonment, he gains all three pieces of the triforce by the end of the 2nd film, third film is a Hyrulian War against Ganon and his forces.”’They haven’t used the triforce in a while. But the last time I remember them using them as mcguffins Link, Zelda, and Ganon each had a piece embedded in them. The last 2 games were all about collecting spirit orbs and light. Also Nintendo made a billion dollars off their last videogame movie. I’m sure they’ll figure out a decent plot this time too.
It made a billion dollars and was…perfectly fine. Good for a kids movie. I would think a Zelda movie needs more crossover appeal with adults than the Mario and Sonic movies, particularly if they’re doing live-action. I don’t think it needs to follow any of the games that specifically. The macguffins can be triforce/pendants/spirit orbs, whatever. The iconography of the triforce is just the most lasting and recognizable.
Oh hell, Give me the god damn korok seed
I agree time travel is a bit much… unless you want to do two (or maybe even 3?) movies doing OoT, the first one with Kid Link collecting spiritual stones, and the next with the whole Adult (or I guess teen?) Saga. But they’d be stupid to go for that first.The definite smart move though for the filmmakers is to keep it simple and do a done-in-one before thinking about anything bigger. Maybe just a real abridged Zelda 1?
Having Avi Arad and the Maze Runner guy attached does not inspire confidence. The most interesting thing in this announcement is that Sony is so deeply involved in producing a Nintendo IP for the big screen.Is it possible that a live action Zelda story could be good? Sure, I guess. I imagine that most Zelda fans would have preferred an animated film – a collaboration with Studio Ghibli was probably too much to hope for, but a Genndy Tartakovsky product could have been cool – a movie filled with long sequences of natural beauty and wondrous, mysterious temples, interspersed with exciting action and traps and deadly monsters, like “Samurai Jack” or “Princess Mononoke.”The main problem with live action is that Link is designed to be a cipher, a nondescript placeholder for the player to have their adventure through. I’m already dreading the inevitable Marvel-style attitude, whether or not “excuuuuuuuse me Princess” is literally part of the dialogue. Link isn’t a quippy smart aleck or a cold, professional warrior – he’s a young, earnest, determined blank slate, somewhere between 10 and 17 depending on the game. I’m really not sure if modern-day Hollywood has a desire to explore such an un-ironically childish idea as a little boy who saves a princess by collecting three magic triangles.
Once a movie is decided, the player/cipher thing is lost regardless. For the film to be any good, Link is still going to have to be a character with his own personality no matter if he’s live-action or animated.
Oh, Avi Arad’s involved?
Too bad they couldn’t get the Max Headroom team to direct this.
And cast Mojo Nixon as Navi!
IMO it’s a bad move to make this live-action. Nintendo just saw an animated movie with Mario make over $1.3B and Sony has had a lot of success with their Spiderverse movies. Zelda is a very popular franchise and the first movie adaptation will sell itself as well as Mario did as long as it’s a decent to good film. So why go live-action when it’s likely going to cost twice as much?
Exactly, this.
I’m not sure you’ve been paying very close attention to animated film budgets, but they don’t cost less than live-action ones, crazy stuff like Avengers and Indy 5 excluded.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse cost $100m (Into the Spider-Verse cost $90m). The Mario movie cost $100m as well.I have doubts a live-action Zelda will cost only $100m. The low-end budget is likely what it cost to make the recent DnD movie ($150m).
Lightyear and Elemental both cost 200M. The point is, its not that much cheaper to make an animated movie than a live action one.But Zelda does make much more sense as an animated film anyway.
Why do those make more sense as comps than the other Nintendo movie that just came out or the two major animated projects by the studio Nintendo is working with? Disney overspending on Pixar content doesn’t mean every animated movie costs as much as live-action does. And that is my main takeaway from those budgets – Disney is just flat overspending if Sony can make the Spider-verse movies for half the price.
I’m willing to be pleasantly surprised.
Can’t wait to see the internet blow a gasket over the casting.
For so many years I’ve said the only franchise I’d legitimately freak out over a movie studio getting wrong is Zelda.
Star Wars fans are almost never happy with anything, and Star Trek fans are always in (at least) two extremely divided camps. I’m personally fine with new creators taking on the IP I love, as long as they are passionate about it. Even if I don’t like the end result.
Zelda has never had a serious film/tv adaptation, and I (along with so many) felt like only Studio Ghibli would ever do it justice. I’m not at all encouraged by their choice in director, either. Surely Guillermo del Toro could’ve been approached for this? Someone who’s not *just* action-experienced.. but who could also bring heart, pathos, and even add something interesting to the lore?
Never got the idea that Link has to be a silent character. Seems like a very unimaginative and literal read out of the game.but yeah, this should probably be animated and it’ll need to retain the scope of the series. Otherwise, it’ll basically just be Krull.
Do studios not realise that hiring someone like Wes Ball is not the recipe for success. You really need a visionary for something like this
oh you do not. all the hard, visionary work has already been done. if anything you need someone who’s gonna stick to it and NOT bring their own flair.
Think Peter Jackson would disagree