It has been revealed that the proposed Netflix adaptation of cult video game franchise Legend of Zelda was scrapped because of leaks.
Rumours that a live-action series was in the works came to light back in 2015. During a recent appearance on The Serf Times podcast, comedian Adam Conover confirmed that Nintendo pulled the plug on the series after news of the adaptation leaked to the Wall Street Journal.
Conover, who was working on a claymation production of Nintendo’s Star Fox at the time, revealed that he believes someone within Netflix leaked news of the Legend of Zelda adaptation. A move that prompted Nintendo to cancel a number of projects, including the Zelda adaptation and Star Fox claymation shows.
“Then, a month later, suddenly there were reports Netflix wasn’t going to do its Legend of Zelda anymore,” Conover said. “I was like ‘what happened?’ And then I heard from my boss we weren’t doing our Star Fox anymore.”
“I was like ‘what happened?’ He was like, ‘someone at Netflix leaked the Legend of Zelda thing, they weren’t supposed to talk about it, Nintendo freaked out… and they pulled the plug on everything, the entire program to adapt these things.”
Loose lips sink ships I guess though this is perfectly within character for Nintendo as its well known for its secrecy when it comes to its projects.
You can listen to Adam Conover discuss it below, the conversation kicks off at around the 39-minute mark.
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The video game franchise has been adapted into a television series once before, with an animated show based on the games that ran back in 1989.
While the 1989 animated series was poorly received, the cancelled Netflix adaptation would’ve marked the first time the story would be reinterpreted in a life-action context. That also doesn’t sound particularly good either to be honest.
Legend of Zelda was first released in 1986. The beloved series has spawned many sequels, the most recent being 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and 2019’s The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.
