Nintendo Announces Release Date for The Legend of Zelda Live-Action Film

Movies

At the end of a fairly lackluster Nintendo Direct Thursday morning (aside from more gameplay and plot for Metroid Prime 4 and Pokemon Z/A), the company unveiled a new app. with Mr. Miyamoto presenting Nintendo Today!, which gives updates and news for all things Nintendo coming in the near future. Now, just a day after, the release date for the upcoming Legend of Zelda live-action film was revealed as March 26, 2027. 

While the Super Mario Bros. film did well, with it paying many homages to past Mario games and being animated by Illumination, there is one aspect of this upcoming project that leaves many fans worried: it’s live-action and being distributed by Sony. It’s difficult to blame fans for having concerns, especially after the many abominations of their “live-action” remakes of old animated classics Disney has put out. Many wanted the famous anime studio Studio Ghibli to animate a Legend of Zelda film, especially since Nintendo has taken some inspiration from the studio. 

Wes Ball, director of this live-action adaptation of the Legend of Zelda franchise, has stated before that he is a fan of the games and has also proven to be adept at creating fantastical worlds with his past films; however, therein lies a challenge: Link himself. As many fans know, our hero does not speak, which is intentional due to the concept of him being a “link” to the player. We “speak” for him in the dialogue options given to us during certain moments in the games. This poses a great challenge, and fans are worried about how, exactly, Link will be portrayed. However, the last time Link was seen on screen was the animated cartoon from the late 80s, where Link did speak, with his eternal line, “Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, Princess!” 

It does beg the question, though, of what the cast will end up looking like, and while Motion Capture is, in some ways, “animated,” there are concerns about how all the various races of Hyrule will look, such as the Gorons, Zorra, and even the Moblins, to name a few. Then, there are the questions surrounding Gannon himself, such as what form he will take in this, or if this’ll end up being a more serious film plot-wise like Twilight Princess or the older titles like Ocarina of Time or even the recent ones, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. 

Another rather big surprise is that it does not appear that there are plans for a “Nintendo Cinematic Universe” (NCU), especially with no Universal involvement in this project. There goes any hope of a Smash Bros. film in the future. However, with the heavy involvement of the game company and, of course, Miyamoto himself, as he was also involved with the Mario Bros. film, there is some ounce of hope that, despite this not being animated, as many would’ve preferred, the film remain true to the source material.

The news has certainly been abuzz with Nintendo lately, what with the April 2 Nintendo Direct set to announce what to expect with the Switch 2 in more detail and the rumors circulating that pre-orders will begin April 9, with the release of the system in June of this year. Now, in typical Nintendo fashion, we have a casual reveal of an exact date of the Legend of Zelda film—just as casual as its announcement from Miyamoto via the Nintendo Japan account on X. 

The Nintendo Switch 2 is is rumored to release in June, with US pre-orders going live April 9th (via @InsiderGamingIG ) pic.twitter.com/4Q3tfWWG3k

— Geeks + Gamers (@GeeksGamersCom) March 28, 2025

Now, the floor is open to you, dear readers. What do you think of this sudden reveal? Does it still bring great waves of excitement or do you share concerns about the Legend of Zelda film similar to those mentioned above? Please let us know in the comments below!

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