The highly anticipated The Legend of Zelda movie adaptation has so far been kept virtually entirely under wraps. The director and writing team have been set, and Shigeru Miyamoto is going to be a producer. That’s virtually all anyone knows about it, as it doesn’t have a cast, title, or release date. Speaking of the release date, there is no official day on the calendar set, but Nintendo did just confirm the window in which the movie will come out.
Nintendo Reveals Release Window for Zelda Movie
While the gaming titan is certainly not leaving the video game industry, Nintendo has slowly but surely forged paths in other forms of media. They’ve gotten into the tech space with the Nintendo Music app and Alarmo, a Nintendo-themed alarm clock, and have already produced a major box office hit with The Super Mario Bros. Movie. In a recent financial report, the company confirmed a few things, including the 2026 release date for a Mario sequel and the release window for the Zelda movie they announced.
This movie will come in “202X” per the report. That indicates that by the time 2029 ends, the movie will have been seen. This doesn’t mean it’s coming out then, as that is still five years away. It is likely that the film, which is still in pre-production, will not take that long to come out. Movies take a while, but they don’t usually take six full years from the initial announcement. If they do, it’s likely because of production issues and the film getting stuck in purgatory, which is highly unlikely to happen. Either way, Nintendo has given themselves a wide window to release the movie and plenty of time to get things right.
What We Know
Now that there’s an official release window, the Zelda movie’s anticipation can continue to build. Aside from that, there’s not a ton of information about what the movie will be. No plot synopsis has been released, though it’s very likely that it will revolve around Link rescuing Princess Zelda and saving Hyrule from Ganondorf. The movie has a director in Wes Ball, who helmed the Maze Runner trilogy and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. It is being written by Derek Connolly, best known for Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, Kong: Skull Island, and Jurassic World.
Ball has already said he wants to make the movie serious and that it will be like a live-action Hayao Miyazaki film. It is being produced by Sony, which means Avi Arad is working as a producer on the film, too. Nintendo is likely to be very hands-on like they were with the Mario film. As of now, there is no cast, though the popular fan cast includes putting Hunter Schafer as Princess Zelda. It is likely to take storylines and events from many different games in the franchise, and Ball even said he wouldn’t name his favorite game so that fans wouldn’t interpret that as being the potential source material. The film may not have even been fully written yet, so there’s really no telling what games might have inspired the plot.
In Conclusion
Eventually, fans who have waited decades for The Legend of Zelda to make it to the big screen (or any screen aside from that random, short animated show) will be appeased. That may not happen until 2029, but everything that is being revealed, albeit very slowly, about this movie is cause for excitement. Nintendo should take their time, and a 2020s release window indicates that they are going to do just that. Fans and players of the iconic franchise will benefit.
