Link moves from Hyrule to Hollywood. Coming from the $1.3 billion success of The Super Mario Bros. MovieNintendo announced on Wednesday that it is working on a live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda. The video game developer said that while it “will take time‘Until the film is released in cinemas, it will be accompanied by Maze runner director Wes Ball and co-financed by Sony. The news got gamers dreaming and signaled the next big step in Nintendo’s quest to evolve from a video game company into a full-fledged entertainment empire.
The Legend of Zelda is one of Nintendo’s oldest and most beloved franchises, featuring a silent, twinky hero named Link battling the forces of evil (usually a maladjusted man named Gannon/dorf) with the help of Princess Zelda. The company created the first game in the series in 1986 and has released dozens more since then, including this year’s critically acclaimed game. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The franchise is one of Nintendo’s top hits, a series where each game is highly anticipated and usually commercially successful. Tears of the Kingdom has sold 19.5 million copies since May alone.
Nintendo’s bet on a film adaptation of the series is part of its expansion into the larger entertainment world. Earlier this year the company achieved gold The Super Mario Bros. Moviewhich eventually surpassed Frozen as the second highest-grossing animated film of all time. Beautifully animated, packed with stars like Chris Pratt and Jack Black, and an incredibly compelling commercial for the developer’s games, the Mario movie proved that, in addition to dark fare like The last of usadaptations of video game franchises aren’t the worst idea in the world.
In October, Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser told WIRED that the success of the Mario movie was a testament to Nintendo’s ability to revive its IP through other media. By moving forward with a Zelda film, the company proves that Mario’s success is not a one-off.
The video game industry has been going big with film and TV projects for years, churning out projects that are either bad (Silent Hill, Residential evil, Assassin’s CreedI could go on), very bad (BloodRayne1993 Super Mario Bros., Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) or surprisingly great (The last of us, Sonic the hedgehog, Detective Pikachu). Despite a long history of failure, studios seem to have figured out how to make good video game adaptations, and audiences have routinely come out for them.
It seems like Nintendo doesn’t want to take any risks. Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto said in a statement Wednesday that he is already “working on the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda for many years” alongside producer Avi Arad, who has worked on films like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Not mappedAnd Morbius. Miyamoto said that Nintendo is “heavily involved in the production,” and while crucial information, such as which actor will play Link, remains unknown, it is clear that Nintendo is investing heavily in feature films.
Can a live-action Zelda movie compete with Mario’s popularity, or more importantly, erase the black mark on the company’s name left by the original live-action Mario movie? Maybe. If not, there’s already a great Zelda-esque live-action movie you can take comfort in right now: Ridley Scott’s 1985 film Legend, a glitter-bombarded fever dream in which Tom Cruise hangs out with fairies in a tiny tunic and Tim Curry plays the devil. Perfection.