Nintendo’s live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda now has a release date, but you’d only know that if you’ve downloaded the company’s recently announced news app, Nintendo Today. The Zelda movie isn’t due out until 2027, and in the meantime it seems like Nintendo is training fans to stay glued to its new app to discover everything else we still don’t know about the project, including story and casting announcements.
Anyone who opened up the Nintendo Today app announced in this week’s Nintendo Direct would have seen a short video of a Tri-Force being revealed alongside the Zelda theme music, as text confirmed a March 26, 2027 release date for the live-action film.
And that was all! The movie is still two years away, which suggests that casting will happen later this year and filming will begin around early 2026. Director Wes Ball, who made the most recent Planet of the Apes movie, previously said he was aiming to eschew heavy use of CGI motion capture for a more “grounded” style with the Zelda movie, dashing hopes by some fans of a more heightened and vibrant fantasy-look reminiscent of the recent Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom games. Then again, he also said he wanted the feel of the upcoming release to be more Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli than Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, so who knows really.
A 2027 release date for the Zelda movie also suggests that Nintendo might try to have something new in the franchise’s repertoire ready to go by then. It paired the Super Mario Bros. Movie launch in spring 2023 with Super Mario Bros. Wonder in the fall. Maybe the company will somehow sneak out another mainline Zelda game by then, or at least give us the Windwaker and Twilight Princess Switch ports we’ve been waiting for.
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