About a month ago, Nintendo announced that a live-action movie adaptation of The Legend of Zelda is on the way. Following the Super Mario Bros. movie into a new video game-based movie renaissance, the live-action Legend of Zelda movie is headed by director Wes Ball and producer Avi Arad. Not much is currently known about the movie, but Ball has confirmed that rather than have it take after classical fantasy films like The Lord of the Rings, he’s looking to bring the whimsical style of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki to The Legend of Zelda’s live-action adaptation.
Wes Ball Discusses Bringing Hayao Miyazaki’s Style to the Live-Action Zelda Movie
The planned live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda games was announced around one month ago. At the same time, Nintendo also announced that the movie would be directed by Wes Ball, a longtime Zelda fan who’s known for his work on the Maze Runner movies and Planet of the Apes. While he’s got an impressive rap sheet, Ball’s appointment to the Zelda movie raised a lot of eyebrows among the franchise’s fans, many of whom were already on the fence about a Legend of Zelda movie being live-action rather than animation like the Super Mario Bros. movie had been.
In a bit of good news, however, Wes Ball has shared his vision for the Zelda movie. Rather than making it a sprawling fantasy epic in the style of The Lord of the Rings, Ball told Entertainment Weekly that he’s looking to imitate the “whimsical” style of Hayao Miyazaki, an animator whose work includes several Studio Ghibli films.
[The Legend of Zelda movie is] this awesome fantasy-adventure movie that isn’t like Lord of the Rings, it’s its own thing. I’ve always said, I would love to see a live-action Miyazaki. That wonder and whimsy that he brings to things, I would love to see something like that.”
Wes Ball via Entertainment Weekly
In the same interview, Ball stated that his “whole life has led up to this moment” and that he and the creative team behind the Legend of Zelda movie are trying not to do this just because they can, but instead to make something “really special.” As for when we can expect to see the movie, Wes Ball has said that The Legend of Zelda work will begin in earnest after Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which is currently in post-production, comes out.
