Nintendo doesn’t exactly like the idea of letting others make movies based on their properties. I may like the Super Mario Bros. movie, but plenty of people think it’s the worst film ever made. Since then, we haven’t heard a peep from Nintendo regarding any movies based on their properties, except for that Animal Crossing anime film.
Of course, Nintendo’s reluctance to license its properties to filmmakers doesn’t mean that said filmmakers have just given up on the idea of films based on Mario, The Legend of Zelda or Metroid. In fact, a pitch from Imagi Studios shows what a Legend of Zelda film would look like under their direction:
“Zelda” teaser from Adam3D on Vimeo.
According to Kotaku, the above pitch was created in 2007 in the hopes of attaining the rights from Nintendo. They were obviously unsuccessful. It is interesting, however, to see what could have been. The animators at Imagi Studios stayed pretty faithful to the designs of both Link and Zelda, but Ganondorf received a major redesign.
Unfortunately, the pitch doesn’t tell us much else about Imagi’s idea for a Legend of Zelda film. Would they keep Link silent, or would they try try to add a voice to the stoic Hylian hero? We’ll never know, and part of me feels like that’s a good thing.