The Legend of Zelda Movie Officially Announced by Nintendo

Movies

It didn’t take long for the interested parties to capitalize on the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Nintendo has just announced that a movie based on the video game series The Legend of Zelda is in development. The Legend of Zelda movie will be live-action, as opposed to the animated Super Mario Bros. Movie, and will be directed by Wes Ball of the Maze Runner films and the upcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Nintendo and Sony Pictures Entertainment will co-fund the film, with Nintendo putting up more than half of the money. Shigeru Miyamoto, the “Representative Director and Fellow of Nintendo,” and veteran producer Avi Arad (X-Men, Spider-Man, Blade, and some early MCU movies that Disney would prefer you forget about), will produce. There’s not much information right now, aside from a tweet in which Miyamoto says that the Legend of Zelda movie “will take time” to make, although he and Arad have been working on it for “many years.”

I have asked Avi-san to produce this film with me, and we have now officially started the development of the film with Nintendo itself heavily involved in the production. It will take time until its completion, but I hope you look forward to seeing it. [2]https://t.co/2H9lzzS5Pv

— 任天堂株式会社 (@Nintendo) November 7, 2023

A Legend of Zelda movie was speculated to be Nintendo’s next move after The Super Mario Bros. Movie blew past $1 billion at the box office, with The Ankler’s Jeff Sneider saying that Nintendo was closing a deal with Universal for an animated Zelda film. The truth ended up being slightly different (which doesn’t mean Sneider was wrong at the time; things change, and the deal could have fallen through), as the film is now being made with Sony, and The Legend of Zelda will be a live-action movie rather than an animated one. The second part is a bit surprising; Super Mario Bros. was such a huge hit that I wouldn’t think they’d want to rock the boat too much. Maybe they’re going for something a little more adult than Mario with this one, which makes sense, although it puts a damper on those crossover rumors. The Legend of Zelda is a bit more niche than Mario, so the need to appeal to a wider market could be a factor. Until a cast is named, speculation is going to run wild; Tom Holland is trending on Twitter right now because he’s being fancast as Zelda’s hero, Link. We’ll see, but between The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Five Nights at Freddy’s, video game adaptations may be the next big thing to sweep Hollywood.