New information has potentially revealed why Nintendo canceled plans for a live-action The Legend of Zelda TV series on Netflix along with other projects.
Adam Ruins Everything host Adam Conover appeared on the Serf Times podcast to discuss capitalism, among other subjects. Along the way, he revealed that in 2014, his then-employer CollegeHumor was working on an official Star Fox project that would have brought the game to life using claymation. Conover claims it was an official Nintendo project and creator Shigeru Miyamoto came into the offices to discuss it. But when news leaked in 2015 that Netflix was making a Legend of Zelda TV series, Conover says Nintendo pulled all of its projects. The discussion begins at the 39-minute mark in the video below:
The fact that CollegeHumor was working on a claymation Star Fox project is particularly interesting, as it sounds similar to Robot Chicken. Conover, however, compares the ill-fated project to Fantastic Mr. Fox. Regardless, it would have been the first official adaptation of the hit game and this marks the first time that news of the potential project has been revealed.
The Zelda series, meanwhile, made a big splash when the Wall Street Journal broke the news back in 2015 that a live-action series at Netflix was in the works. While fans got excited, Nintendo quickly denied the rumors. And if Conover's claims are true, someone at Netflix leaked the news and Nintendo canceled all of their adaptations as a result.
The series would have been the first live-action Nintendo adaptation since 1993's Super Mario Bros. Though it's become a cult favorite, the movie was a critical and commercial bomb, scaring Nintendo away from adaptations for years. Regardless of what the plan was for Zelda and Star Fox, Nintendo ultimately broke the dry spell with 2019's Detective Pikachu, which was a commercial success and seems to have opened the company up to more adaptations.
The Legend of Zelda was one of a handful of animated projects Nintendo made before the Super Mario Bros. movie, with a 13-episode series airing in 1989. Back in 2018, Castlevania producer Adi Shankar revealed that he was working on a new animated Zelda series for Netflix, though there haven't been any significant updates on the project since. That same year, it was also revealed that Despicable Me studio Illumination was working on a CGI Super Mario movie.
Nintendo and Illumination's CG-animated Super Mario will arrive in theaters in 2022.