Earlier this month, a first-look teaser trailer for Wes Ball‘s “Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes” was released, the fourth installment in 20th Century Studios‘ modern “Planet of The Apes” franchise. An impressive feat to take the reigns from Matt Reeves (“The Batman”) and it sounds like Ball has established what his next big project will be and it is a real doozy.
Nintendo has officially announced that they are moving forward with a live-action feature film version of their popular fantasy film “The Legend of Zelda” at Sony Pictures with Ball directing and Avi Arad (“Ghost In The Shell”) producing. Arad might be best known for his attachment to the successful “Spider-Man” franchise including the Oscar-winning “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” but is also currently involved with Jordan Vogt-Roberts‘ (“Kong: Skull Island) “Metal Gear Solid” movie at Sony that has Oscar Isaac set to star as Snake.
Another tidbit mentioned in the press release is that Nintendo isn’t just handing over the rights to Sony Pictures as the video game company will be co-fiancing the film by providing more than 50% of the production budget. This would likely mean that they’ll have a larger participation in profits if the film is another box office success. Although it’s unknown how much the ultimate cost of the budget will be given we’re only looking at an announcement and budgeting only happens when a script is much further along.
“Zelda” focuses on the adventurous protagonist Link and is set within a high-fantasy world that lends itself to some fun quests on the level of “The Lord of The Rings.”
Here is the official press release posted by Nintendo:
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Minami-ku, Kyoto, President & CEO: Shuntaro Furukawa) is pleased to announce that it has started planning and developing a live-action movie about “The Legend of Zelda”. The film will be co-produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, a Fellow of Nintendo, and Avi Arad, president of Arad Productions Inc., who has produced a number of blockbuster films. The film will be produced by Nintendo and Arad Productions Inc., and will be directed by Wes Ball. In addition, Nintendo will invest more than 50% of the production cost of the film, and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. will co-finance the worldwide distribution.
It’s been said by Deadline that Derek Connolly is writing the film’s script, he isn’t a stranger to video game adaptations after previously working with Arad on “Metal Gear Solid” and on Legendary’s successful film “Detective Pikachu.”
Ball really got on studio radars after his “Maze Runner” franchise and once attempted a feature film adaptation of the comic book “Mouse Guard” only for the project to get nixed during Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox leading a heap of gestating films at 20th Century Studios were canceled. The filmmaker would eventually be selected to tackle “Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes” allowing him to oversee a CGI-focused epic and should be a great choice to bring Hyrule to the big screen.
There had been an obvious assumption that once the animated “Super Mario Bros.” movie earned Universal Pictures a billion dollars other Nintendo properties like “Zelda,” “Starfox,” and “Metroid” (John Woo nearly made a film) would be next to be turned into feature films. And the former is now officially in the development stage.
Sony Pictures is sort of an interesting choice given they’re already developing a wave of film and television projects based on their PlayStation games which includes the second season of “The Last of Us” at HBO, a series version of “God of War” at Amazon, and director Chad Stahelski (“John Wick 1-4”) is attached to make a film based on the samurai game “Ghost of Tsushima.” There is also an expectation that a follow-up to Tom Holland‘s “Uncharted” could happen down the line as well, which was produced by Arad as well.
SOURCE: NINTENDO JAPAN
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