Nintendo announces live-action Hollywood Zelda movie, co-financed by Sony

Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto to serve as producer.

After the success of this year’s animated Super Mario Bros. Movie, it was inevitable that we were going to get another big-screen adaptation of a Nintendo franchise. The only question was which one. Some people predicted it would be Metroid, which already has parallels with the atmosphere of space action thrillers like Aliens, or maybe a cozy, low-stakes movie visit to the Animal Crossing community would be next.

But instead, Nintendo is pulling out the biggest arrow it has in its quiver after Mario, and has announced that a Legend of Zelda movie is on the way.

It’s the obvious choice, seeing as how the Super Mario Bros. Movie’s US$1.3 billion-plus in box office revenue shows there’s huge demand for a Nintendo movie done in a fan-pleasing style. The big surprise about the Legend of Zelda movie, though, is that it’s going to be live-action, not animated.

As with any movie adaptation of a pre-existing media franchise, one of the big questions is how much involvement the original-medium creators will have. Like he was for the Super Mario Bros. Movie, Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto will be a producer on the film, and Nintendo says it will be providing more than 50 percent of the movie’s financing.

▼ Miyamoto once again commandeered the Nintendo of Japan Twitter account to break the news.

This is Miyamoto. I have been working on the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda for many years now with Avi Arad-san, who has produced many mega hit films. [1]

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

As for the non-Nintendo parties involved, Avi Arad also serves as a producer. Arad’s producing/executive producing resume contains a slew of Marvel adaptations, including every Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2, 2003’s Daredevil, 2008’s Iron Man, and 2022’S Morbius. As far as projects based on video games or Japanese IPs, Arad was a producer for the live-action Uncharted and Ghost in the Shell, as well as the Double Dragon American T.V. cartoon back in 1993. The live-action Legend of Zelda already has a director too: Wes Ball, who directed all three Maze Runner movies and is helming the upcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, so feel free to start working on your “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” fan art now.

Also part of the project is Sony. Though Nintendo and Sony are rivals within the video game industry, Sony Pictures Entertainment will be co-financing and distributing the live-action Zelda.

No release window has been mentioned, with Miyamoto simply saying “It will take time until its completion, but I hope you look forward to seeing it.”

▼ Will live-action Link have a visible life meter like these T-shirts at the Nintendo Tokyo store? Only time will tell.

For hard-core fans of video games or Japan-originated entertainment franchises neither Arad’s nor Ball’s involvement is likely to be a major selling point. However, Super Mario Bros. Movie producer Chris Meledandri and directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic didn’t have any prior experience adapting video games either, and critics and audiences alike were plenty pleased with how that movie turned out.

The switch to live-action does add a degree of difficulty and uncertainty to the Zelda movie, though. The video game maker was still more or less within its realm of established expertise with the animated Super Mario Bros. Movie (it’s essentially one long CG cutscene), making it easier to step in and offer assistance if the other involved parties aren’t quite getting the details right. It might not be as simple, though, for Nintendo’s talented video game artists to transfer their knowledge to live-action, which would in turn make the Zelda movie more reliant on its non-Nintendo partners.

That said, with Nintendo holding over 50 percent of the purse strings, they’ll ostensibly have the biggest say in the big decisions, and with the Super Mario Bros. Movie owing much of its success to keeping things simple and not contradicting the source material, odds are we can expect a similar strategy with Zelda.

Source: Nintendo, Twitter/@Nintendo
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