After the success of the latest The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Nintendo has announced plans to adapt another one of their famous IPs for the big screen, The Legend of Zelda.
After The Super Mario Bros. Movie grossed over $1.3 billion worldwide, it seems to be a no-brainer that Nintendo would double dip and bring another one of their iconic franchises to theatres, and it seems they’ve named a candidate. Late last evening, Nintendo officially announced plans to bring The Legend of Zelda to theatres with partner Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. While the film is only in the announcement phase, Nintendo has already named series creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Chairman of Arad Productions Inc. Avi Arad (Spider-man: Into The Spider-Verse) as producers on the project in a statement.
The legendary creator of Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda took to Nintendo’s official X (formerly Twitter) account to make the announcement himself and he wrote “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” with “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.”
Nintendo has named Wes Ball (The Maze Runner, upcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes) as director, with The Legend of Zelda film being co-financed by Nintendo and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., with over 50% coming from Nintendo themselves. While nothing else has been revealed regarding the upcoming film-in-development, the series has done incredibly well this year, with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom selling over 18 million units by August 2023, according to their Q1 2024 financial report.
While fan speculation continues to swirl on ‘Who’s playing Link?’ over on forums like Reddit, fans can head to the official Nintendo release for all the current information.
