After the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Nintendo announced that a live-action The Legend of Zelda movie is in the works.
Nintendo revealed this via an official news release. There, it was confirmed that Nintendo is developing a Zelda live-action film, and it will be produced by legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto alongside Avi Arad, the Chairman of Arad Productions and the producer of Sony’s Spider-Man films.
This means the Zelda movie will be produced by Nintendo and Arad Productions Inc., and it also means that it will be co-financed by Nintendo and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. As for distribution, this will also be handled by Sony Pictures Entertainment.
A Zelda movie being in the works isn’t surprising given that the Mario movie earned over a billion Dollars globally. Though it’s interesting that Nintendo is going with live-action for The Legend of Zelda movie as many thought that it will be another animated film.
The partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment for financing and distribution might be surprising for some given that Sony is a competitor in the console space. This isn’t exactly a Nintendo and PlayStation partnership though considering that Sony Pictures Entertainment is quite far removed from Sony Interactive Entertainment (which handles the PlayStation brand).
What is interesting is that Nintendo went with Sony Pictures and Avi Arad considering that their Mario movie was made by Illumination and Universal. Arad and Sony’s track record with the Spider-Man films may have been a possible reason, but this is all conjecture at this point.
In the meantime, it’ll be interesting to see how Zelda will fare as a live-action series. Fans are also surely curious if the movie will create its own Zelda story or if it will adapt an existing game in the ever popular series.
Source: Nintendo