Nintendo confirmed that the live-action film of the popular game The Legend of Zelda is already in development and will be co-financed by Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
The Legend of Zelda Live-Action Film Development
In a recent announcement, Nintendo revealed that the film will be co-produced by Arad Productions and will be directed by Wes Ball. The director was known for working on "The Maze Runner." As for the script, there were reports that "Jurrasic World" writer Derek Connolly will be handling it.
Although Sony will be co-financing the film, Nintendo is shouldering more than 50 percent of the finances. Meanwhile, Sony Pictures is responsible for the theatrical distribution. Nintendo co-producer Shigeru Miyamoto wrote on X that the film has already been in the works for many years, together with Avi Arad.
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
Miyamoto also emphasized that the company will be heavily involved in the production. "By producing visual content of Nintendo IP by itself, Nintendo is creating new opportunities to have people from around the world to access the world of entertainment which Nintendo has built, through different means apart from its dedicated game consoles," the company wrote on a blog post.
Nintendo Turns Popular Games to Movies
This actually not the first popular game that Nintendo plans to do a movie. Recently, the company owed most of its revenue boost to the massive success of "The Super Mario Bros. Movie." The film became a box office hit with over $1 billion in sales. Meanwhile, Tears of Kingdom developers have hinted before that they will be interested in making a Zelda movie, attributing the success of Mario film.
However, unlike the Mario movie, Zelda film will be a live-action. All of the beloved characters like Link, Zelda, and others will be cast in real life. Nintendo briefly mentioned that the production would take some time before it gets completed and hoped that fans would look forward to seeing it.
In the meantime, fans would have to guess what part of Zelda will be explored in the film or if it would be a totally different and new portion of the game. The game has been around for decades so it must be a difficult task for the people involved to decide which one to showcase for two to three hours of film.
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