Live-Action ‘Legend of Zelda’ Series Cancelled Due to Leaks
Nintendo reportedly cancelled its speculated Legend of Zelda live-action series at Netflix after news of the project leaked online. Comedian Adam Conover recalled the incident on The Serf Times podcast, revealing the true reason Nintendo pulled the plug on the show.
It was 2015, and Conover was working on a claymation Star Fox adaptation. Then, after news of the Legend of Zelda series was leaked by the Wall Street Journal, Conover got word that the Star Fox project had been canned. Soon after, Nintendo halted development on The Legend of Zelda as well.
“Then, a month later, suddenly there were reports Netflix wasn’t going to do its Legend of Zelda anymore,” Conover said. “I was like ‘What happened?’ And then I heard from my boss we weren’t doing our Star Fox anymore. I was like ‘What happened?’ He was like, ‘Someone at Netflix leaked the Legend of Zelda thing, they weren’t supposed to talk about it, Nintendo freaked out ... and they pulled the plug on everything, the entire program to adapt these things.”
The WSJ article in question cites a “person familiar with the matter,” who told the newspaper that the upcoming video game adaptation was billed as “Game of Thrones for a family audience.” The source also revealed that the series would be centered on Link’s conquest to save Princess Zelda and the land of Hyrule. That leaked information was enough for Nintendo to scrap the project altogether.
While we wont get a Zelda series anytime soon, Nintendo is still working on its upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie, scheduled to be released in 2022.
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