A Legend of Zelda movie is reportedly in the works at Hollywood.
Very recently, while talking to John Rocha on The Hot Mic podcast, Hollywood insider Jeff Sneider revealed that Univeral Studios is on the verge of closing a ‘big deal’ with Nintendo for adapting Zelda games into movies.
Notably, Universal owns Illumination, the esteemed animation studio responsible for The Super Mario Bros. Movie. After its massive commercial success, it comes as no surprise that they turned attention towards another famous Nintendo game series for a movie adaptation. After all, The Zelda series is considered to be one of the most popular gaming series in the world, with more than 45 games (including originals and remakes) to its name.
With the first Legend of Zelda game launched in 1987 and the last game, Tears of the Kingdom recently breaking records by selling more than 10 million copies in the first three days since release, it’s quite obvious that the series contains both the material as well as the public appeal for a successful movie adaptation.
The Legend of Zelda games include lots of key elements that would translate brilliantly to movies – a stoic and adventurous protagonist, a wise damsel in distress, and a relentless antagonist who breaks the laws of realities time and again to rain hell upon the peaceful and magical kingdom.
Although Legend of Zelda games have a tendency of feeling very similar in terms of plot—starting with Princess Zelda being kidnapped, Link rushing off to find and save her with the help of allies, and ultimately battling Ganon to save the princess—Nintendo has always managed to bring in new elements and strategies in their games to make them feel fresh. It remains to be seen how a movie adaptation goes about handling the narrative.
Video game adaptations have finally started to gain momentum in the past few years. Apart from the Super Mario Bros. Movie, TV adaptations like HBO’s The Last of Us and Netflix’s The Witcher have gained massive critical success in the last few years. With Universal rumored to be pretty close to a deal with Nintendo, it does seem that we may get a Legend of Zelda movie in the near future.
Source – John Rocha & Jeff Sneider (via YouTube)
