Archive link: https://archive.ph/F4r9U
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (HQ: Kyoto Minami-ku; Representative Director and President: Shuntaro Furukawa, “Nintendo” hereafter) today announced that it will develop a live-action film of The Legend of Zelda.
The film will be produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, Representative Director and Fellow of Nintendo and Avi Arad
The film will be produced by Nintendo and Arad Productions Inc., and directed by Wes Ball. The film will be co-financed by Nintendo and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., with more than 50% financed by Nintendo. The theatrical distribution of the film will be done worldwide by Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
It will certainly be interesting to see how this film turns out given the oft-cited point that Link does not traditionally speak during the games (though I think he did in the CD-i games).
It’s also worth noting that video game based movies rarely do well. I’m not sure what the general consensus was on the Illumination Mario movie, so maybe people are more optimistic for this movie if they liked that one. Personally, I didn’t love the Mario movie, so I’m still a little uncertain of the potential quality of this movie.
I certainly hope this movie does well, though. Then we can finally get the Chibi-Robo movie we’ve all been waiting for.
Link speaks in both the CDi games and the cartoon that was attached to the Mario Bros super show.
The general consensus on the Mario movie probably doesn’t matter much as it made over a billion dollars worldwide. Personally I thought it was fine but lacks a lot of the heart that made the deeply flawed 1993 movie so charming.
“well excuuuuuse me, princess!”
This line better be in the movie.
I think the Mario movie did well because it is very different from most video game movies. They went for a family/humor approach instead of a serious epic/action movie. The Sonic movies are another example of this working well.
so, Im not very optimistic about a Zelda movie.
Link seriously talks WAY more than people realize. The thing is that it only ever is represented by him doing little hand waves and head bobs. Like literally anytime someone says “what happened link, did lassie fall down the well?” He will actually be answering to fill that person in, I want to say WW is the first game to do it with an animation but people definitely ask link things and seem to get an answer even in OOT.
So in short I hope to god they don’t do silent protagonist.
I’ve never played any of the games, but I would understand that Link is a silent character that uses sign language.
I definitely recommend looking at Avi’s filmography. He’s produced some good movies but man… some of those were total stinkers…
The fact that a majority of it is superhero or superhero-oriented I think gives us an idea of what this movie might be like.
edit: a bad producer is in no way a surefire predictor of a bad movie by the way, but it definitely doesn’t help.
Please give Link a Brooklyn accent.
