Wes Ball’s latest film, Kingdom of Planet of the Apes, is advertised as coming to streaming platforms. This big, action-orientated Planet of the Apes movie has had a decent critical reception.
What is of importance to Nintendo and video game fans is whether Wes Ball’s experience making Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes puts him in a good position to make his next movie, The Legend of Zelda, a success. With the Super Mario Movie being a smash hit and making more money than Donkey Kong has bananas hoarded, Nintendo might be on the cusp of bringing multiple IPs into the medium of cinema and streaming.
Imagine a Metroid anime, an F-Zero mini-series, and a chain of successful Zelda films. This would make Nintendo franchises prominent in the eyes of the world’s media. For better or worse, Nintendo and its video games would no longer exist exclusively in the niche world they currently inhabit. A lot may depend on how The Legend of Zelda movie is received for how Nintendo’s fate will play out over the coming years and decades.
We know Wes Ball will be directing the new Zelda film, Avi Arad will be the producer (one of his best films is arguably Venom), and creator Shigeru Miyamoto is closely involved in pre-production and will be an advisor throughout development. The film is scheduled to release in 2026 at the earliest. This means that the development team has roughly two or three years to make the film.
Casting will be an interesting part of development. Two to three years doesn’t sound like enough time to create a sprawling epic. We don’t even know how the foundations of its lore will be created in the medium of film (for the first time). In terms of cast, I’m hoping that they go for a cast of unknowns with maybe one, or two famous actors or actresses playing important parts. Like, Ian Mckellan as Rauru. Or, Hilary Swank as an older Impa.
I think that Link, his personality, his outfit, and his place in the world will have to be carefully dealt with if the film is going to be a success. A character that is reminiscent of both Robin Hood and Peter Pan, Link will have to carve his own identity and do it in a way that doesn’t come across as comical, ridiculous, or arrogant. The exact way they will do this is a mystery, but it’ll require a Weta Workshop-style effort for them to pull it off and work. I say this based on how badly the live-action Super Mario movie went (1993), and how awkward many fan-made YouTube Zelda videos end up.
It’s great that Miyamoto will be so closely involved with the project and he could potentially decide in which direction the series will go, taking inspiration from one particular game, or using all the titles as inspiration. The Castlevania anime is a really good example of what can be done using video game franchises, and one would think anime would have worked similarly for Zelda.
However, now we know that the Zelda project is live-action (a riskier approach than making a Zelda anime) this could be Nintendo putting all of its chips on the table and the start of multiple franchises getting anime, TV series, and movie adaptations. Nintendo moving into mobile gaming, the success of the Detective Pikachu movie (and sequel in development), and the great sales and critical reception of the Super Mario Movie show a trend that could imply this is a new Nintendo, open to collaborations and branching out into new mediums. We so far, have no confirmation of Nintendo creating new media based on its game franchises, but a Donkey Kong spin-off movie has been heavily rumored and the second Super Mario movie is in the works.
Other videogame adaptations of recent times have been relatively successful. Including the previously mentioned Castlevania anime, the Sonic movies, Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City, Tomb Raider (2018), and that’s not to mention what is in development such as Netflix’s Devil May Cry.
Are we truly on the cusp of a new era for Nintendo or is it all just unjustified hype? Nintendo will continue to be mainly focused on producing games. With Metroid Prime 4 and Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom due to launch imminently, Nintendo are the world-class game developers that they have always been. The three or four internal teams within Nintendo produce great games, and with the “Who is Emio” trailer currently baffling fans on social media, the trailer implies that Nintendo is developing a horror game. Nintendo isn’t scared to approach new territory in terms of game development. Time will tell if there will eventually be a Nintendo cinematic universe.
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