Zelda
Image: Viz Media / Nintendo

There once was a time when movies based on video games were box office poison, but that has changed in recent times thanks to the commercial success of films based on Resident Evil, Sonic and Pokémon.

The latest game to get the Hollywood treatment is Sony's Uncharted, which, despite some lukewarm reviews, has performed well enough in cinemas to trigger discussions about turning it into a full-blown movie franchise.

Nintendo is, of course, no stranger to the concept of using live-action movies to expand its reach. The company was arguably ahead of the game, releasing the cult classic The Wizard and the much-maligned Super Mario Bros. movie in the early '90s. More recently, Detective Pikachu pulled in the crowds, and there's a new Super Mario Bros. film in production as we speak which will showcase the vocal talents of Chris Pratt.

But what video game series do fans want to see tackled next on the big screen? Well, it might not come as a massive shock to learn that Zelda topped a recent poll held by FandomSpot, which asked 2,000 gamers that very question.

Zelda was top, followed by Grant Theft Auto. Animal Crossing was sixth, while Super Mario was 9th – which is odd, as we're actually getting a film based on that series, as we've already mentioned.

Here's the 10 most-wanted video game-to-movie adapations:

  1. The Legend of Zelda
  2. Grand Theft Auto
  3. Horizon: Zero Dawn
  4. God of War
  5. Hollow Knight
  6. Animal Crossing
  7. Final Fantasy
  8. Fallout
  9. Super Mario
  10. Red Dead Redemption

FandomSpot's Alyssa Celatti had this to say about the results:

Gaming has provided us with so many role models over the years and with gaming becoming more and more representative, it’s no wonder people are starting to crave seeing the connections they’ve made via their consoles on the big screen.

Many people have a big connection with their fandoms and the characters within, so it’s no surprise that people want to see channel crossover, whether that’s from games to movies and vice versa, or other media forms like comics and TV spin offs.

Zelda has been made into a cartoon in the past, of course, and there were reports that a live-action TV show was in the works a few years back – which was apparently cancelled by Nintendo after Netflix leaked details.

More recently, Powerhouse Animation's David Howe – who worked on Netflix's excellent animated Castlevania series – said he'd love to take on Zelda, but thinks it would work better as an anime:

I know for me personally and probably for some people I’ve talked to as well, whenever the rumors of a live-action Zelda Netflix show came up, obviously we were pumped; but at the same time we were always like–I feel like this would work better as an anime.

I don’t want to speak for my co-workers, but if you look around the office at Powerhouse Animation, we’re all nerds. We’re all huge fans of Zelda and Metroid… I feel like anyone would chomp at the bit to make a show like this.

[source fandomspot.com]