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Back in 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that Netflix was working with Nintendo on a live-action series adaptation of The Legend of Zelda. The Journal said that their source is "a person familiar with the matter" who also said that "Netflix is describing it as “Game of Thrones” for a family audience". The project was apparently still in its early stages as the report noted that Netflix was seeking writers to work on the show at the time. However, even if other outlets shared this news, nothing was officially announced and the report was dismissed as rumor.

Now, nearly six years after the original news broke, new details emerged about the project. Speaking to YouTube channel The Serf Times in a recent interview, Adam Conover of Adam Ruins Everything, talked about a "secret project" that was in the works while he was at College Humor. It involved the latter collaborating with Nintendo to make a claymation version of Star Fox and Fantastic Mr. Fox. Shigeru Miyamoto even came to College Humor's office to discuss the project. About a month later, Adam Conover heard the news that the Zelda Netflix adaptation was not happening and around the same time, his boss also told him that they weren't doing the Star Fox claymation anymore.

Asking for more information, he says his boss said the following:

“Oh, someone at Netflix leaked the Legend of Zelda thing. They weren’t supposed to talk about it. Nintendo freaked out because it was the first time they had done any IP in years for any products [...] But when Netflix leaked it, they freaked out and they pulled the plug on everything. They pulled the plug on the entire program to adapt these things.”

You can watch Adam Conover share his anecdote as from 39:05 in the interview below:

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In a tweet following the resurgence of the news, the author of the original Wall Street Journal article, Ben Fritz, confirmed that his reporting in 2015 was accurate but didn't confirm (and apparently won't) that his source was a Netflix employee, only saying that it "may not be true".

So it would seem that the live-action Zelda series was actually going to happen until the news (in some form) started to go public before Nintendo wanted it to be. Given how they are protective of their IP, they found it best to pull the plug on any collaboration at the time. Should the project have gone forward, would you like to see a live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda?

SOURCE

 

[Teletron1]

Dear Big N , with the right writers this could be really good goddess + warrior + devil Game of Thrones with magic

would be cool if they did a Metroid animation horror/drama too

 

[Valwinz]

Good live action was a mistake and been on Netflix they would have ruin it with woke crap

 

[Deleted User]

Fantastic Mr Fox sounds like a cool name.

 

[Deleted member 534570]

Well excuuuuuuuuusssssseeeee meeeee....

 

[Jayro]

Nintendo: "OMG, you told them what we're making? "
Netflix: "Yeah."
Nintendo: *Throws a temper tantrum like a toddler*
"Well now we're not making it!!! "
*Shouting like a Karen*

 

[JVF]

The switch was leaked?

Eurogamer reported in July 2016, months before the release of the "First Look at Nintendo Switch" video, that the then called "NX" was going to be an hybrid console: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-26-nx-is-a-portable-console-with-detachable-controllers.

 

[nolimits59]

I love to see people predicting future like they have a superpower to see whats going to happen, kinda remind me of those people who where saying that Star Wars or Smartphones was a stupid idea anyway.

 

[Noctosphere]

I love to see people predicting future like they have a superpower to see whats going to happen, kinda remind me of those people who where saying that Star Wars or Smartphones was a stupid idea anyway.

like people who were saying that in 2010, people won't talk about star wars at all anymore...

 

[Obveron]

The Netflix leak couldn't have been all that well known. Did any tempers know about this back in 2015?

 

[Hanafuda]

Would have sucked anyway.

Especially the dialogue. "Herh!" "O-oh" "Heeey!" Hearty laughter. "A-aah" *Sighing* "Herh!" "Herh!" "O-oh" "Aaaay!"

 

[jomaper]

Remember when they sued Elián Gonzalez and his family because the raft he floated over on looked too much like something from Donkey Kong?

yeah... im gonna need a source for that lol

 

[CMDreamer]

I'm glad it got cancelled. Nothing good would come out off of it.

Just take a look at the Castlevania series produced by Netflix... awful, really awful.

Netflix shouldn't "touch" such franchises.

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

yeah... im gonna need a source for that lol

Source(s): dude trust me

 

[stanleyopar2000]

Wow.. bunch of fucking snowflakes

 

[gamesquest1]

shame, I kinda wish it would've happened, sure it might've sucked, but who really cares, lots of things suck, if you never do anything because it might suck you wouldn't ever get anything good.......at the very least you might get some updated EXCUUUSE MEEE princess memes, in the right hands it would be nice to have the Zelda universe expanded out, there is lots of characters and locations to base it in even if it was only loosely tied to Zelda, following a more actiony setting with a mix between big army battles and stuff kinda somewhere between hurdle warriors and the normal Zelda format of exploring temples and stuff

 

[Kwyjor]

Fantastic Mr Fox sounds like a cool name.

You know that's a book by Roald Dahl, later (loosely) adapted by Wes Anderson as a stop-motion film, right? Hence the video in my post on page 2.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432283/

(It's a rather nifty movie, but definitely a bit strange.)

 

[tfocosta]

Rather than a live-action show, I would prefer to see a new Zelda anime with Link's quest fully detailed.

 

[Darkworld92]

Eurogamer reported in July 2016, months before the release of the "First Look at Nintendo Switch" video, that the then called "NX" was going to be an hybrid console: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-26-nx-is-a-portable-console-with-detachable-controllers.

never forget that 80% of nintendo fans (myself included) were crying out to the sky that this was NOT gonna be nintendo's next console, little did we know how it woud've turned out later

 

[HideoKojima]

Seems that was a real leak not like marketing leaks to generate hype

 

[Jonna]

I'm glad it got cancelled. Nothing good would come out off of it.

Just take a look at the Castlevania series produced by Netflix... awful, really awful.

Netflix shouldn't "touch" such franchises.

Wait, I thought people really liked the Castlevania series on Netflix?