What are your hopes for the 2027 live action Legend of Zelda movie?

Link, the plucky adventurer and recurring savior of Hyrule, is set to make his live-action debut on the silver screen in March 2027. While we don’t have very many details about the movie so far, recent trends in video game film and TV adaptations can guide us towards speculation about pretty much every aspect of the movie.

Nintendo took a three-decade cooldown period from the film industry after the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie laid a white-and-green speckled Yoshi egg at the box office. It wasn’t until the mid-2010s that the development of the Super Mario World theme park led to a relationship with Illumination Studios. That connection resulted in 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, an animated origin story for the mustachioed plumber siblings that ground pounded previous records to become one of the top 20 highest-grossing movies of all time.

Following that success, The Legend of Zelda was the next franchise that Nintendo chose to bring to the big screen. The decision to go with a live adaptation over an animated one is interesting, but does make sense if the target audience is older than that of the Mushroom Kingdom crew. With Shigeru Miyamoto signed on to produce, we can be hopeful that the movie won’t stray too far from the source material.

So are you hoping for a straightforward triforce-gathering adventure film with a climactic Ganon confrontation, or would you rather see something a bit different? Do you think the movie should identify with a particular installment in the series? The Breath of the Wild chapter makes a lot of sense, given that it’s brand new and quite popular. Do you think they could instead take a gamble on nostalgia and simply make an Ocarina of Time movie? I think I’d prefer that this film creates its own pocket universe without too much time spent on establishing where in the franchise’s labyrinthian timeline we are.

What kind of feel are you hoping for? With Wes Ball set to direct and the recent success of The Last of Us, we could be in for a gritty, dark edition of Hyrule. Would you rather a lighter touch on the serious scale, like what we saw with Detective Pikachu?

The main things on my wish list are a great soundtrack and the easter eggs that you expect from a franchise that has nearly 40 years of history. Koji Kondo consulted on the 2023 Mario movie, so I really hope that all of the most intense parts of the upcoming Zelda film are accompanied by full-orchestra renditions of all of his classic themes. As far as subtle nods to the fans, if they are done just right they can turn an adaptation of a classic story into something that keeps the target audience smiling as they notice their favorite characters in the background or the presence of a pottery repair shop in the town square.

What’s on your list for the upcoming Legend of Zelda movie? Are you looking forward to it at all? Do you think it could be the start of an entire trilogy (or more), or do you consider it more likely to end up as another bullet point on the disappointing adaptations list?