Earlier this year, The Super Mario Bros Movie stormed the global box office taking over $1.3 billion on a $100 million budget.
Until very recently the blockbuster, co-produced by Nintendo and Universal’s Illumination, was the biggest movie of 2023 before Barbie surpassed it.
Given its huge success, no doubt sequels and spin-offs will be announced, but what about the chance of adapting other much-loved Nintendo video games?
The Japanese company’s other major franchise is The Legend of Zelda, a high fantasy swords and sorcery adventure, which has never had a film version.
However, multiple reports are claiming that one is now very much in the works at the Hollywood studio.
Respected scooper MyTimeToShineHello tweeted: “Universal developing a live-action Legend of Zelda movie.”
Given the recent success of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Japanese manga and anime One Piece, it’s possible that the similar stylings of Zelda could work in that format too.
Interestingly, Giant Freakin’ Robot have previously scooped that a Zelda movie is in the works at Illumination, but an animated one with a massive Hollywood star.
The outlet previously reported that Henry Cavill was in talks to voice Link in a CG-animated Legend of Zelda movie, much like Chris Pratt as Mario.
However, it’s possible that Universal are now going with live-action, which might rule out Cavill given he’s much older and muscular than the young and skinny Link.
Hopefully, we’ll get the best of both worlds and have a live-action and animated take on Zelda. But if it was just one, our best bet would be a CG-animated one given the success of Super Mario.