Nintendo’s first foray into the film industry was a resounding success, with Super Mario Bros. quickly became one of the most successful animated films of all time. Because of this, it’s likely that Nintendo is now looking to its vast vault of iconic franchises to see which others have movie potential, and it seems that The Legend of Zelda has been settled on as its next big project.
That’s according to prominent Hollywood insider Jeff Sneider, who claimed on a recent episode of The Hot Mic Podcast (thanks Consequence) that Nintendo and Universal Pictures are close to agreeing a “major deal” for a movie based on The Legend of Zelda. Of course, Universal Pictures owns Illumination, the animation studio behind Super Mario Bros. , so after their recent success, the two teaming up again is probably the least surprising thing you’ll hear all week.
“I’ve been told that Universal is actually closing a ‘major deal’ with Nintendo Corporation for The Legend of Zelda,” says Sneider. “Zelda looks like Illumination Nintendo’s next big franchise, which again we all kind of expected, but yeah, I’m told it’s happening…”
Sneider also claims that Universal has to pay “a lot of money” for The Legend of Zelda because Nintendo is now “realizing its value” following the success of The Super Mario Bros. More details about the film have not been revealed, but Sneider believes that Nintendo and Universal will take their time with the project to get it right, and that there may be a bit more leeway with Link’s character since he’s pretty much a blank slate. character.
As Sneider points out, the success of Mario has always led to more Nintendo film adaptations, something Shigeru Miyamoto himself has confirmed since the release of The Super Mario Bros. Movies. I guess it’s a little disappointing that Nintendo would potentially go with Illumination again, especially with a franchise like Zelda that has a diverse range of art styles to draw inspiration from, but it’s already proven to be a safe pair of hands and Nintendo probably isn’t. tv in the strongest position to start experimenting with different animation studios.
Based on what we’ve seen so far, we can probably assume that the Zelda movie will adapt the first game in some way, although what fans really want is adaptations of more popular titles like Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild. It sounds like we’ll have to wait a little while longer to see what Nintendo’s plans are, so fingers crossed that Illumination gets that right as well. Just keep Chris Pratt away from Link and you’ll be off to a good start.