Nintendo Has a Silent Problem With ‘Zelda’ Film
When Nintendo Co. announced on Tuesday that it was developing a live-action Legend of Zelda movie, fans rejoiced. They had been asking for this for years: In 2022, Zelda was voted the most desired game-to-movie adaption in a survey by pop culture site FandomSpot, but even as far back as 2008, gaming news giant IGN created an elaborate hoax trailer that thrilled, and ultimately disappointed many fans.
Nintendo's news wasn't unexpected. Recent game adaptations have been commercial successes, garnering box office profits and awards. Since the pandemic, this has included series such as HBO's The Last of Us (with an astounding 25 award wins and 86 more nominations) and Netflix's Arcane (22 awards). Movie adaptations have included Sonic the Hedgehog one and two (five awards and 15 nominations between them), and, of course, Nintendo's own The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which made $1.36 billion at the box office this year.
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On the heels of this success, it's no surprise that the video gaming company would want to take another flagship series to the silver screen. However, a Zelda adaptation comes with one major challenge that these other movies did not: Its protagonist, the hero Link, doesn't speak — and its developers have been adamant, over the years, that this should remain so.
Silent protagonists were common in the early days of video games when voiced characters were computationally expensive or otherwise impossible to include. Though technology has advanced drastically since Zelda's debut in the 1980s, Nintendo has stayed this course with longstanding protagonists like Link and Mario. In 2009, a company representative explained to Kotaku, a gaming site, that it's Nintendo's tradition for
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