Zelda followers already obtained a stellar new recreation with “Tears of the Kingdom” this 12 months, however Nintendo simply dropped one other thrilling nugget of stories: the gaming large is engaged on a live-action movie based mostly on the Legend of Zelda franchise.
Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the 37-year-old franchise, introduced the information this night.
“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,” he wrote on X in a press release translated from Japanese. “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.”
Avi Arad has produced movies like “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which gained the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, together with dozens extra Marvel films.
While surprising, this transfer makes a variety of sense for Nintendo. Though Link’s story has been unfolding for many years, the franchise is hotter than ever. Breath of the Wild, the 2017 recreation launched on Nintendo Switch, has been hailed by each followers and critics as one in every of the biggest video video games of all time (extra realistically, it’s one in every of the greatest video games to come back out on Nintendo Switch, which is nonetheless excessive reward). When the sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, dropped earlier this 12 months, it by some means managed to reside as much as followers’ large expectations, promoting 20 million copies from May by way of September.
So, if Nintendo noticed match to make a movie all about Mario, a working-class plumber, why not inform the story of Link, a legendary hero spanning time and house?
When Nintendo introduced it was making “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” a number of years again, followers appeared a bit jaded — and likewise confused as to the casting of Chris Pratt as Mario. But the movie was shockingly profitable, even for a product constructed on such iconic IP. The movie grossed greater than $1.3 billion, surpassing “Frozen” as the second-highest-grossing animated movie ever (“Frozen II” holds the crown). The Pokémon franchise, one other Nintendo money cow, has been churning out films and tv exhibits at breakneck pace for many years, even tapping Ryan Gosling to be Pikachu… So why not give Link the highlight this time?
We’re simply hoping Chris Pratt doesn’t audition to play Link.