Zelda Live-Action Movie Director: "I Want To Fulfil People's Greatest Desires"

I have no idea how a no-name like him got such a massive franchise to tackle. I hate to sound negative but The Maze Runner series gives me 0 hope that he knows how to handle a large fantasy epic, then you learn that the writers are responsible for such hits like Morbius and you've got yourself a massive disappointment waiting to happen.

Well, if the movie's director and Sony's CEO says it'll be good, I'm convinced. There's no point in even reading the reviews now.

Half the people desire that Link doesn't talk and the other half desires that no one ever makes a live action Zelda so good luck with that.😂

My greatest desire was for the Zelda movie to be animated. Well, too late for that I guess.

@SpaceboyScreams we will have to see Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes first to see if his directorial skills are good enough to tackle it

I can’t wait to watch Link build his first spaceship and sports car in the movie if he follows TotK fans’ statements that “this is the new Zelda now” 🙄 lmao

I've always thought a more balanced tone is the way to go for a Zelda movie. Sophisticated but campy for those who want a serious movie and a light hearted one. Also Link being a man of few words for those who want Link to talk and be mute. Basically this movie we'll be a medium of desires.

@SpaceboyScreams
No, the writers are not the one who wrote Morbius.

One of the producers of the Zelda movie is Avi Arad who also produced Morbius, but he produces every Spider-Man or Spider-Man-related movie at Sony so that tells us absolutely nothing about the potential quality of the film.

@SpaceboyScreams it's been a while now that smaller directors are given these huge deals. It's my opinion that they're just easier for studios to push around than someone with a voice and clout. I'll try to stay optimistic, but yeeeeeah....Maze Runner director? Just why. Anyone here could suggest a more fitting alternative.

All y'all thought the Mario Movie was gonna be trash because it was being produced by Illumination, and it wound up being stellar thanks to Nintendo's close scrutiny of the project. This will be no different. Have a little faith. I'm not worried in the slightest.

I think I'm just the kind of person who doesn't really want the things I like to change. Games/shows/etc. inspired by ones I like or completely new things from my favorite creators still have the potential to blow me away, but anything that tries to take a property I care about in a "new direction" seems to land somewhere between disappointing and insulting. Here's hoping this can buck that trend, but I won't be setting my expectations very high.

Still not sure why they’re making it live-action in the first place, but fingers crossed

I'm surprised they've chosen live action. That would've been enticing 20 years ago, back when fans were still clamoring for a game that felt like that Space World 2000 demo. But in review, Twilight Princess is arguably the franchise's only entry that feels translatable into the real world, and its aesthetics no longer feel quintessentially Zelda given the direction they've gone starting with Skyward Sword.

@SpaceboyScreams he's a huge Zelda fan tho

I'd suggest watching Zeltik's video on that subject

But if you wanna fulfill my greatest desire, just don't make this movie please

There are ways you could do this film so it isn't awful, but they won't do them. Imagine something along the lines of the 5th element, but not space opera, and I can see that. I want muppets, but it will be all janky cgi and recycled one liners.

I really don’t love the idea of it being super serious, butI guess anything Zelda will probably satisfy

If only the Fallout TV show director had this perspective.

„Fulfil people's greatest desires" sounds awful to me. I don’t want to be only pleased with comfort food, but also challenged by some degree. This is how your taste and your mind can develop. Twilight Princess was comfort food of its time, „classic“ 3D Zelda mixed with LotR, „what fans want“. And see how it is assessed today.

@westman98 Does that include Madame Web? That tells us a whole lot actually.

@gabrigoes So am I. You don't want me directing the movie either.

What if your greatest desire is for there to not be a Zelda movie

"With this in mind, the film's director Wes Ball (known for the Maze Runner trilogy)" Oh, no...

Yes yes we know. He wants to make it as marketable as possible not as good as possible. Giving the public merchandise to buy off shelves is more important than a good film. Just look at Star Wars.

Here's hoping he doesn't drop the ball.

My greatest desire is that Danny DeVito plays Tingle so Wes better make good on that by the film's release

That's a good attitude to have.
Certainly better than Fallout's director saying "trying to please fans is a fool's errand".

Izzy Nichols xx

In other words: a second Nintendo movie devoid of any personality and depth because they want to please stupid people (aka the masses)

@SpaceboyScreams
I don't see Madame Web on Avi Arad's IMBD page so I guess not. The most recent film he produced was Across the Spiderverse.

At least it isn't another Paul W. S. Anderson vehicle for his wife, Milla Jovovich.

"My wife has a part."
"Oh, is she playing Zelda?"
"No, Link."

...I just hope it doesn't do a Bob Hoskin's Mario Movie and try to tell someone elses copycat story 'inspired' by the Legend of Zelda instead of being faithful.

I'm a Zelda fan and I want world peace. I'm not sure how that will be possible via the medium of fantasy cinema.

@Macatt Skyward Sword doesn't really look anything like the last couple games, does it? I expect the next one will be completely different as well. The series has pretty much always been that way.

Well, I've got a lot of adult desires

@Max_the_German
I‘m all in for opening the mind and going new ways but despite sticking to the formula gameplay wise I don‘t see how Twilight Princess isn‘t doing it‘s own thing when looking at the story. Midna is a good example of great character development and in the end that is the kind of thing I would want in a Zelda-movie.

@Not_Soos I never thought it would be awful, just kinda milquetoast. It was fine for my kids, which is what I expected, and I didn't really need more than that.

Life Action aber s gonna fail! That’s the worst decision they could make! Zelda should do a Ghibli style movie!

I think what I want the most out of this movie is for him to pick a composer by the name of Sam Dillard to write the score for this movie.

Mr. Dillard was the one who created the Zelda Cinematica album, which takes various musical pieces from the franchise (from the original NES game all the way to BOTW) and arranges them into beautiful and moving pieces, pieces that never fail to make me emotional, they're that powerful. In a way, they sound just like the score for a Zelda movie.

You can listen to this album on music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, but you can also find it on Sam Dillard's YouTube channel as well.

I am firmly of the belief that only he is capable of writing the score for a Zelda movie. I should probably write the director and point him in Sam Dillard's direction.

Personally I think live action is the brave choice. It could be great, but there’s obviously more risk involved.

If they can pull it off (big ”if”) I’m more interested in this, than an animated movie.

@SpaceboyScreams Think of it this way: did many people hear about Peter Jackson before he directed The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, especially outside of New Zealand, much less have any confidence that he could pull it off?

As far as I am aware, he was a relative nobody until LOTR rocketed him to stardom in the directing world. Now he's the fourth-highest-grossing film director of all time, and The Return of the King is one of only three films that has won the most Oscars in history (11, to be exact), the other two being Titanic and Ben-Hur. In fact, it swept the Oscars that year, having won every category it was nominated for, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

This movie could very well be Wes Ball's claim to fame, much like LOTR was to Peter Jackson. Plus, with Nintendo exercising creative control over the project, as well as Wes Ball being a huge fan of the Zelda series, I doubt they will allow it to end up like the 1993 Mario movie.

Please no love story

Wait, live-action? No, we had enough of that bs in the past. Do you remember Uwe Boll?

İ want it look like real action movie like it is real life Ocarina of time style movie with things like Navi, Gerudo's, Ganondorf, Gorons, Zora's, Lost Woods, Gerudo place, Death mountain, Zora's Domain, Dungeons like Forest Temple, Water temple, Fire temple and Ganon's castle. Young Link and adult Link. Princess Zelda young and adult.

The story must be very different and very good.
Rescue Princess Zelda at the Ganon's castle a fight with Ganondorf and Final fight with the Ganon and got the Triforce at the end.

"Something serious and cool. Fun and whimsical" , is pretty much how I would describe the best Zelda games. I will stay optimistic about this project.

@LikelySatan David Lowery
Can work within studio confines but has an amazing artistic style. Check out The Green Knight.
I'm more down on the writers than the director as he seems to specialise in developing new CG technologies and is a proven fan.

If it was another adaption I'd be concerned about the director but Nintendo and Miyamoto are going to be, metaphorically speaking, breathing down his neck. I wouldn't be surprised they picked someone who said the right things but was small enough that they could push against on their red lines.

@Not_Soos "Stellar" is a bit much 😅, It was OK. Hopefully the Zelda film is more than just OK, it's got such a rich story potential that Mario doesn't have.

I'm already turned off being live action its weird considering they want to cinematic universe how will that even fit. I was expecting legend of zelda having studio ghibi animation like The boy and heron. Its instant skip for live action for me unless casting is really good. It killed hype.

Please, please, please just don't subscribe to the woke agenda by making Zelda an arrogant, uber-feminist, girlboss. If they follow modern 'hollywoke' doctrine it won't matter who the director and writers are as it will be terrible irregardless.

They need to avoid that pitfall if the movie is to even have a slight chance at success.

If you want to fulfil my greatest desire,
then just let it be ! Thanks

@Not_Soos "stellar" Yeah, not quite.

He better write Tingle into it then. It's what the people want.

I would say that my greatest desire, as of right now, is to befriend a sentient, psychic fungus which could spread throughout my city and provide me with salacious gossip, or warn me of danger, etc.

I doubt Wes Ball can give me that, so I will settle on the film not being a flop. Thank you, Wesley.

@Gamergirl94 Well, considering Star Trek managed to pull it off by crossing over Lower Decks with Strange New Worlds, it's not entirely impossible for a Nintendo Cinematic Universe to do the same. Or, they could go the Roger Rabbit route, where Toons and Humans lived side-by-side with each other, and no one questions it.

But personally, I don't think Studio Ghibli would be the right choice for a Zelda anime. From what I have seen, Ghibli movies are more about personal growth and overcoming your own insecurities, rather than dealing with existential threats like tyrannical warlords or apocalyptic events. A Zelda anime would likely be more action-oriented, something that I haven't seen Ghibli do in a long while. As it is, the closest we got to a Zelda anime was Tales From Earthsea, and that one was mediocre at best.

Personally, I am in favor of Ufotable making a Zelda anime. They have done excellent work with the action sequences in Demon Slayer, and miHoYo/HoYoverse has tapped them to produce the upcoming Genshin Impact anime, the concept trailer for which is visually stunning, to say the least.

@SpaceboyScreams those movies were not great but I’m not sure it was because of directing. I’ll be curious to see how the new Planet of the Apes movie is.

@BenjiTProcrastinator nice comparison of what it could have been! Since we are not getting that, I’m hoping for a LOTR type major epic.

@Vyacheslav333 Uwe Boll is notorious in the industry, that's for sure. But I have heard that part of that is due to the way Germany's tax system is set up.

Apparently, if your movie ends up being a commercial flop, you can write it off on your taxes (basically the same reasoning behind Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav canning the Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme movies, although they shelved those films before they were even released).

I'm not saying that Uwe Boll makes bad movie adaptations of video games so he can get out of paying taxes, but I can't help but wonder if that was a factor.

@BenjiTProcrastinator Hayao Miyazaki is constantly coming in and out of retirement. Plus, his films, especially recently, have been more art films than anything else, not really meant for mass appeal, at least compared to his earlier works.

More than likely, it would be his son Gorō making a Zelda anime film. The closest they came was Tales From Earthsea, which was mediocre at best. It stands at 38% on Rotten Tomatoes and 47/100 on Metacritic. The creator of the Earthsea franchise also expressed disappointment with it. Even Hayao Miyazaki was not impressed by it, saying the following: "I was looking at my kid. He's not an adult yet. That is all."

I hate saying it, but I simply don't trust Gorō to do a good job with a Zelda anime, considering his track record has been hit or miss. After all, he directed the aforementioned Tales From Earthsea, with only Earwig and the Witch (another film directed by Gorō) being received worse, standing at 28% on Rotten Tomatoes and 46/100 on Metacritic.

As such, I believe a different anime studio would be better-suited for a Zelda anime. My vote is for Ufotable. They have shown an excellent track record with animating action sequences, such as those in Demon Slayer, and they are the studio in charge of making the upcoming Genshin Impact anime (the concept trailer for which was nothing short of gorgeous). I trust them far more to do Zelda justice than Ghibli, especially if it ends up under the reins of Gorō.

@Croctopus That's basically what last year's Dungeons & Dragons movie was like. You didn't need to be an expert on D&D lore and races to understand the movie. It combined dramatic moments with action and comedy, making it a bit like how a D&D campaign goes in real life.

Fortunately, that movie was very well-received, garnering 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, although the Metacritic score was lower, at 72/100. It's just a shame the movie didn't attract enough viewers to the theaters, but I think a big factor to that is because the Mario movie came out just days later and stole its thunder.

But it's not just the D&D movie. You get this in anime as well. In that realm, you have anime like KonoSuba, Princess Connect! Re:Dive, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, and so many more.

When Peter Jackson was making 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy, there was similar opinion due to his previous film history (Heavenly Creatures, The Frighteners).
People assumed it would bomb, but it did not and happened to be one of the best films ever made.

I don't know much about this no name director, but when it all comes down to it we'll just have to wait and see.

@SurprisedRobinChu Basically what I said earlier. I don't think many of us heard of Peter Jackson before LOTR, but he mainly did the books justice, and the LOTR trilogy is one of the pinnacles of cinema. He now stands as the fourth-highest-grossing film director of all time, and The Return of the King swept the Oscars, winning every category it was nominated for.

Heck, if it didn't go to Wes Ball, I would have said Peter Jackson should get the director's chair.

@Not_Soos Of course it was trash. I watched it at the cinema with my son unfortunately. I recommend All Of Us Strangers or Poor Things instead.

I mean...it's a fanbase. There's no way to please everyone.

As for me, I'm cautiously optimistic about this one. If Nintendo had little to no involvement, I'd write it off entirely. The Super Mario Bros. Movie turned out well, so I expect this will be somewhat decent. Not sure how I feel about the live action angle though.

I appreciate his enthusiasm.
He's been wanting to direct a Zelda movie for 14 years now, so he might actually be one of the best choices for a Live Action zelda, especially if they use motion capture which seems to be his strong suit.
I don't think he directs animated films, and it probably isn't his decision to make, so I'm assuming he'll do his best to make the best film he CAN make. Of course, with it being live action and Hollywood, I do still have my concerns. Zelda and Link's characters especially will need extreme care in order to please fans. Including myself.
Like someone else mentioned, Zeltik has a video about this topic and whether or not Wes Ball is a good pick as a Zelda movie director.

The true hero (as awesome as Link is) is Groose. If this movie is ‘Groosless’ then this movie is ‘Useless’.

That just sounds creepy.

@AstroTheGamosian The difference between this dude and Peter Jackson is that Jackson had already done several really good movies before LotR. Heavenly Creatures was one of my favourite movies of the 1990s, Meet the Feebles was a really funny satire, and Bad Taste, Braindead, and even The Frighteners were all enjoyable horror romps. So having seen all of them, when it was announced Jackson was gonna direct a LotR adaptation, I had confidence he could pull it off. With Ball, I'm not so sure.

The Maze Runner trilogy. Well, I fear this is going to be garbage.

Dangit. I would have rather had Illumination create another masterpiece.

Why live action? I hate that. If you’re going to do this (ugh) make it animated. And when I mean animated, I mean hand drawn, not Illumination style.

Idk, this whole trend of turning games into movies drives me up a wall. I love Zelda cause it’s a GAME. It being turned into a movie does nothing for me. It’s why I still haven’t watched the Mario film. Let games be games.

I have full trust in Nintendo to make this movie cool.

I really dont think this movie will be a flop.

@AstroTheGamosian Hm... Interesting.

A24 please save Zelda.

@SpaceboyScreams Now I'm worried Miyamoto will be a Yes-Man and he'll be afraid to speak up amongst a room full of Americans.

@Polvasti Well, we'll just have to wait and see. After all, he is a BIG fan of the Zelda series, so I believe he'll do it justice.

@Not_Soos : did we watch the same Mario movie?

It was exactly the same as every illumination movie, no plot, lots of set pieces, etc. only thing it was missing was an end credits dance off (I think, the whole thing was so instantly forgettable, I forget)

To be honest, Miyamoto’s apprehension for narrative is what concerns me the most. Works well for something like the Mario Movie, which is meant to be more of an experience than a deep dive, but that same philosophy could easily make Zelda feel very watered down.

@RetroGames Which was?

@KidSparta Movies need competent stories.

Doesn’t matter if it’s Mario, Zelda, or Sonic. You need competent writers and directors for this to work.

@SpaceboyScreams He's a fan and most likely has a great idea for the film. Also, the screenwriters have not been confirmed yet.

@KidSparta Miyamoto was the one who pushed for the cinematic style that the custscenes have in the Zelda games ever since Ocarina of Time. Don't know what you're talking about.

Funny reading the hate comments of "I wanted an animated Zelda film". If it would have been animated, it would have been like the "How to train a dragon" films, or something like Puss in Boots, with a little of Shreck on it, so, you'd still would have b1tched about it. Wes Ball is a fan, and he must have impressed Miyamoto enough, so that he chose him to direct the film. Let's have patience, people.

Quite honestly, i don't know what I want from this film. I just want it to be good, but I don't know how I would define "good."

A lot of yall really do have ZERO trust in Nintendo.
People doubted The Super Mario Bros. Movie and it was a huge success. As long as Nintendo are there every step of the way, the movie will be great.

This is going to be awful. Just awful. Please don't complete it.

He doesn't need to hype people up to ridiculous levels for inevitable disappointment, they're definitely going to do that on their own with this one. Especially if the Mario movie was any indication.

It's hilarious (and sad) that so many have prematurely decided this is going to be a disaster and shouldn't be made. I'm a huge Zelda fan, but apparently not to the point of feeling entitled to gatekeep the franchise from expanding to new platforms and audiences.

There are some serious trust issues at play here, and for what reason? Pessimism? Cynicism? How about giving it a chance before passing judgment? Novel concept, I know...

@Edu23XWiiU perhaps it’s a bit apples to oranges, but I’m primarily referring to his desire to remove narrative almost entirely from Mario games after Galaxy 1 and Super Paper Mario. Maybe it’s not fair to attribute that to him alone, but I’ve heard pretty often that he was an active part of it.

Well, it can’t be any worse than the Mario movie, can it?

""I Want To Fulfil People's Greatest Desires"

I don't think Scarlett Johansson would consent to do that on film...

@TheGreyandTheRed congrats on completing the silliest thing I've read today with "irregardless." Can you lead with that next time, so I can avoid the rest of the comment?

@AJWolfTill The Green Knight was the hardest sit I've had in a theater...maybe ever. Very pretty, and I admire the vision, but very difficult for me to get through. Doesn't mean I'm not interested in seeing more from him though.

@LikelySatan would you like to explain why you think my comment was "silly"? Or was it maybe just a typo? And you were actually meant to say accurate, correct or true? If that's the case then, that's no problem, you know mistakes do happen.

@TheGreyandTheRed so no? K then byeeeeee.

@Anachronism It's subjective of course, but I see strong relations among the modern games' aesthetics. To me, SS is TP mixed with WW, and BotW/TotK are SS mixed with even more WW. So although one might expect WW to be the outlier in style, I'd in fact call TP the outlier as it has no significant WW-inspired stylistics.

I would like for this movie to never be made, why going live action? Please don't!

@westman98
Avi Arad ruins everything he touches/produces!

I honestly prefer the blink honestly if the Fallout approach. "I am a fan, which means I know it's impossible to please even a majority of Fallout fans cause it's such a splintered fan base. I focus on what I think is cool, and let the other idiots have their inevitable arguments on Twitter."

@Macatt On a scale of most realistic to most cartoonish, Twilight Princess and Wind Waker probably sit on opposite ends, though even Twilight Princess has its fair share of ridiculous characters. I'd put BotW/TotT somewhere in the middle given their art style, about even with OoT/MM, though they might actually have the most realistically proportioned and uniform character designs on average thanks to using what's essentially a character builder for a lot of the NPCs. With its characters all having some degree of exaggerated proportions or facial features and a color palette that often borders on garish, I'd actually put Skyward Sword second in cartoonishness after Wind Waker. All that to say pretty much what I already said; the art style jumps around a lot without much rhyme or reason. Though I am hoping they go back to either a more concretely grown up or childish incarnation of Link for the next game. The current design has always felt like kind of an awkward middle ground to me, not quite fitting the role of a boy heading out on a big adventure or of a knight tasked with saving his kingdom.

I'll reserve judgment until I see how Miyamoto finds it. I'm pretty confident Nintendo won't allow one of their biggest franchises to be tarnished.

Personally, I hope they make it more like Lord of the Rings, with less emphasis on CGI and lots of real scenery and practical effects.

Well at least they found a decent enough writer in Derek Connolly. I thought his work on the Jurassic World trilogie was quite entertaining.

@alexw You must be joking. I can’t think of another trilogy of movies that was so consistently badly written.
This is going to be a disaster and NintendoLife is going to give it 9/10 and people will love it because stupid things are popular.

@calbeau But they had no problem turning Mario into whatever it became🤷‍♂️

@Edu23XWiiU
As far as I can tell Derek Connelly has largely been a co-writer for various big movies (most frequently working alongside Colin Trevorrow) and has never written a movie as the sole writer up until now with Zelda.

@anubisvel nintendo hasn’t really proven that they can be trusted with making movies. Some people know a thing or two about filmmaking and can read the signs that this is going to be bad. It’s not just pessimism, it’s just facing reality.

Nice, I was hoping for a travesty like the 1993 Mario movie. Get half a snap on and hit up the theatre!

@PinderSchloss So you've decided you're gonna hate it, and everyone else who does like it is stupid. Makes perfect sense to me!

It's a tricky franchise to make work it has to be said...

I’ll reserve judgement until we see a trailer, and maintain cautious optimism for now

I like everything I'm hearing about this one. Will stay optimistic

@TheGreyandTheRed I believe he was at least partly referring to your use of "irregardless," which isn't actually a word. It's just "regardless."

@PinderSchloss They haven’t proven that they can’t be trusted, so which signs are you reading? Is the reality in the room with us? Facts, not speculation and presumption.

I’m not here saying there’s a masterpiece in the works. The “reality” is it’s too early to say either way.

@Spider-Kev
Nonsense, he has produced some very good if not outright excellent films.

@anubisvel

• Nintendo’s previous film
• Maze Runner director
• Jurassic World writer
• The fact that these characters and world would have to be changed completely to work as a movie

@westman98 Has he been confirmed as the screenwriter? I can't that confirmation anywhere?

@KidSparta Mario games don't need an overly constructed story to work. They do work, because of gameplay. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is better than the first one, because it also dropped a story altogether, Galaxy 1 had that sad story of Rosalina and the Lumas, but that didn't click with the general audience.

@PinderSchloss While it's fair to consider past works from the director and writer, it's still too early to declare this a guaranteed "disaster."

I'm cautiously optimistic and I'd like to give them a chance. Your brand of skepticism seems a tad extreme, but you're entitled to your opinions. Time will tell if you're a prophet or a pretender.

Yeeeeah directors say stuff like this, and a lot of times it ends up being this awful and confusing mess. Makes the audience wonder how these people strayed off course when there is so much material to draw from right in front of them? I don't have any hope at all for it either.

@N00BiSH Do we really wanna see Devito in tight green spandex at his advanced age?

@Tempestryke he's worn worse.

@westman98 Derek Conley being the sole writer that might not even be the case. His name was leaked, not announced. There has to be way more than who we know at the moment.

@PinderSchloss Thats because the first time they tried the big screen it burned them and Mario. Now we got a movie that represents Mario, acquired taste or not. If that doesn't prove Nintendo can't handle movies, I don't know what will.

@SpaceboyScreams well, you're not a movie director. But I don't want necessarily for him to direct it, I just meant he may be emotionally involved enough to put some extra effort