Nintendo shadow-dropped a 2027 release date for a live-action Zelda movie in its weird new app, and it'll reportedly be part of a trilogy

(Image credit: Nintendo)

At the latest Nintendo Direct, a new smartphone app called Nintendo Today debuted, and it acts as a calendar and news feed for everything Mario, Zelda, Pikmin, and so on. You might think that sounds slight if you're not a Switch superfan, but the company immediately used the app to drop a release date for the hotly anticipated Legend of Zelda movie: March 26, 2027.

I feel like I've been hearing there's a Zelda movie on the horizon for about as long as I've understood human language, so having an authentic release date pinned is pretty surreal. As reported by VGC, according to Hollywood influencer and leaker Daniel Richtman on the other side of a Patreon paywall, the film's actors have signed on for three movies' worth of Hyrulean antics.

Anything unverified like this is obviously to be taken with mountains of salt, but it's making the rounds in the headlines regardless—and assuming these movies are any good, it's an exciting prospect. I admit my assumptions are doing some heavy lifting there, but a guy can dream, right?

To try and rassle Zelda's anime-inspired art style into live action is certainly a choice, and the games have never had such complex yarns that you'd need nine or more hours to spin them, but there's no way to pass judgment until we've gotten a look at the final cut. It's hard to imagine a version of this movie that isn't at least fun to watch, regardless of which Mario movie it resembles in terms of quality.

That's if it comes out at all, of course. There are plenty of other games with movies that seem to be perpetually in development: Watch Dogs, BioShock, and Metal Gear Solid, just to name a few. And even though we've gotten enough decent adaptations to say that videogame films aren't inherently cursed, they still tend to be putrid more often than not, and I can't say I've ever seen a truly exceptional one.

While you wait, there's plenty of Zelda-related fun to be had on PC, including a stunning fanmade port of Majora's Mask, even as Nintendo tends to meet such passion projects with an oversized cartoon mallet. It's clear that enthusiasm for the series, which remains one of the most influential and acclaimed in the entire videogame medium, is simply impossible to keep down. However this movie (or these movies) turn out, I doubt that will change.

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Justin first became enamored with PC gaming when World of Warcraft and Neverwinter Nights 2 rewired his brain as a wide-eyed kid. As time has passed, he's amassed a hefty backlog of retro shooters, CRPGs, and janky '90s esoterica. Whether he's extolling the virtues of Shenmue or troubleshooting some fiddly old MMO, it's hard to get his mind off games with more ambition than scruples. When he's not at his keyboard, he's probably birdwatching or daydreaming about a glorious comeback for real-time with pause combat. Any day now...

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