Almost exactly one year ago, Nintendo made the surprise announcement it was working on a live-action Legend of Zelda film directed by Wes Ball. Ball went on to have a mega success with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes but we still don’t know if a sequel to that is next for the filmmaker or if Hyrule is on the horizon.
Nintendo seemingly has an idea though. The game company held a major financial presentation Tuesday night and included was a graphic that suggests it expects The Legend of Zelda movie to be released between 2026 and 2030. Here is a screenshot
A screenshot from Nintendo’s corporate news brief on November 6, 2024. Image: NintendoNow, clearly, this is not a definitive release window. It’s more like a wish and a prayer. A way to say to investors “This is coming and aren’t you all excited?” If the release date was set in stone, it would say so in the bullet points. So there’s no guarantee we see Zelda before 2030. That’s just merely the hope at this point.
But let’s break it down. If the movie went into production today, it would still come out after Super Mario Bros. 2 in April 2026 so at least that seems accurate. Ball has now been attached for at least a year but we don’t know exactly how long, if at all, he’s been actively working on it. We do know it’s been on his mind forever though, as per his discussion with io9 this summer. “I don’t have blinders on,” Ball told us about the expectations of a Zelda movie. “I know what I’m going into. I would not have done it unless I thought I was capable of doing it. I wouldn’t have done this movie if I didn’t think I was capable of doing it. Hopefully I have. We’ll see. But I grew up playing Zelda, dreaming about Zelda, thinking about Zelda. It’s an important thing to me, so I will do my best to not mess it up.”
Not messing something up means taking lots time. It means working on a script with care toward getting the story right, and going from there. The actual making of the film would probably be, in the overall scope of things, the shortest part of the process. For example, Ball started production on Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes in September 2022 and released it in May 2024. So he could probably make another Apes movie, release it, and then make Zelda and still have time left before the end of that window.
io9 reached out to Ball’s production company for potential comment but has yet to hear back as of publication. We’ll update the piece if or when we do. And, in the meantime, we’ll patiently continue to wait and see if this movie even happens. Because Nintendo knows better than anyone that it’s better to release no movie than a bad one.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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