Maze Runner director, Jurassic World writer, and no release date yet:
Sony and Nintendo haven't collaborated on much of anything since the Nintendo PlayStation went awry. But Sony's film division is putting its money together with its console semi-rival to produce a live-action The Legend of Zelda film.
Details are scant beyond a Nintendo press release and Hollywood reporting by Deadline. The director is Wes Ball, director of the Maze Runner film trilogy, and the writer is Derek Connolly, who wrote the Jurassic World trilogy and was tagged to work on a putative Metal Gear film.
[...] Nintendo will provide more than 50 percent of the financing, according to Deadline, with Sony handling the theatrical release. The Super Mario Bros. Movie ranks as the year's second-highest-grossing film at $1.36 billion, which likely helped green-light another film centered on another well-regarded Nintendo property.
[...] No release date or plot details are available.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday November 11 2023, @02:29PM (3 children)
The Press-release or the story doesn't really go into much except that Nintendo and Sony are funding a movie. That is somewhat or somehow related to their Zelda IP.
It doesn't say which part or anything of the sort as far as I can tell. So which Zelda story? Actually The Legend of Zelda or perhaps a more generic Zelda or? If they want to retell the story of one of the games shouldn't it be Ocarina of Time instead as that is, as I recall it, generally the one that is considered to be the best story? Or at least the best game. Perhaps they are saving that for the eventual sequel.
Also I'm not sure it will go down well in this modern story telling as even tho it's called the Legend of Zelda it's really the Story of Link, as he is the main protagonist in most of the stories while Princess Zelda is more of a classic story princess in need of rescue. She just isn't as bad as Princess Peach in Mario.
The story of the Legend of Zelda tho is just a long series of fantasy tropes if I remember correctly. Good vs Evil. An overpowered artifact, The villain, Fair Princess Zelda (that gets kidnapped by the villain) and, eventual future superhero, Link coming to the rescue. It's not exactly a riveting and deep story. But then computer games at the time are not exactly known for their deep lore and stories, that came a lot later and got padded on over the years.
I know everyone shits on the first Super Mario Bros movie, but I thought it was quite entertaining and the soundtrack by Roxette wasn't bad -- come to think about it perhaps that was actually the only or main redeeming feature of the entire movie.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Sunday November 12 2023, @09:55PM (1 child)
I am expecting the movie to be bad. Mostly because the names attached so far did The Maze Runner and Jurassic World. Also, there is a zero percent chance that the studios will allow Zelda to be trapped and waiting for Link to save her. She'll need to be a girlboss who pretty much does all of the work solo, leaving Link as comic relief.
Finally, they'd need to stick an R18+ rating on it due to all of the Korok torture [youtube.com] - not sure that this will make it viable.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday November 13 2023, @01:26AM
I don't think anyone believes it is going to be a cinematographic masterpiece. More like a piece of Hollywood accounting write-off.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday November 14 2023, @06:34AM
There's a big difference between the "best game" and "best story" for a film: you don't get any agency in how the plot develops during a film. And Zelda games depend a lot on letting the player explore and discover things.
Widespread fan acclaim is no guarrantee either: Disney paid no attention at all to the Thrawn trlolgy of books when they bought Star Wars.
If I were to take a guess, I'd suspect that they'll take some style cues from the massively successful Switch games, which have had the biggest audience of the franchise for some time. But I'd expect a bespoke plot, rather than reimplementing a specific game's story.