Nintendo confirms live-action Zelda movie is in the works

Zelda fans have already received a new stellar game with “Tears of the Kingdom” this year, but Nintendo has just announced another nugget of exciting news: the gaming giant is working on a live action movie based on the Legend of Zelda franchise.

Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the thirty-seven year old franchise, announced the news this evening.

“I have been working on The Legend of Zelda live-action film for many years now with Avi Arad-san, who has produced many successful films,” he wrote on X in a statement translated from Japanese . “I asked Avi-san to produce this film with me, and we have now officially started development on the film with Nintendo itself heavily involved in the production. It will take some time until completion, but I hope you look forward to seeing it.

Avi Arad has produced films like “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which won the Academy Award for Best Feature Film, as well as dozens of other Marvel films.

Although unexpected, this decision makes a lot of sense for Nintendo. Although Link’s story has been happening for decades, the franchise is hotter than ever. Breath of the Wild, the game released in 2017 for Nintendo Switch, has been hailed by both fans and critics as one of the greatest video games of all time (more realistically, it’s one of the best games released on Nintendo Switch, which remains high praise). . When next, Tears of the Kingdomdropped earlier this year, it somehow managed to live up to fans’ huge expectations, selling out 20 million copies from May to September.

So, if Nintendo saw fit to make a movie about Mario, a working-class plumber, why not tell the story of Link, a legendary hero who spans time and space?

When Nintendo announced that it was doing “The Super Mario Bros. movie.“A few years ago, the fans seemed a little jaded – and also confused about the casting of Chris Pratt as Mario. But the film was wildly successful, even for a product built on such iconic intellectual property. The film grossed more than $1.3 billion, surpassing “Frozen” in the rankings second highest grossing animated film ever (“Frozen II” holds the crown). The Pokémon franchise, another Nintendo cash cow, has been churning out movies and TV shows at breakneck speed for decades, even bringing in Ryan Gosling to play Pikachu… So why not give Link the spotlight this time- this ?

We just hope Chris Pratt doesn’t audition to play Link.