MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Nintendo is in the early stages of making a live-action The Legend of Zelda series that will be shown on Netflix, it has been claimed.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Netflix is already in the early production stages with the show being described internally as Game of Thrones for a family audience”. The proposed series will apparently stay loyal to the games and will see ordinary boy” Link battling across Hyrule to save Princess Zelda.
Nintendo is closely associated with its production, although a writer hasn’t yet been signed. In fact, the site even adds that it’s possible that Netflix or Nintendo will kill the project before it gets off the ground”.
In January 2014 Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the company would up its licensing activities to bring its IP to new audiences.
We are planning to utilize Nintendo’s abundance of character IP more actively,” he said at the time. I think the reason that Nintendo is now considered to have this ‘abundance of character IP’ is perhaps because of our passive approach toward the character IP licensing business, which tends to have a high risk of damaging the value of the character. However, we are going to change our policy going forward.
To be more precise, we will actively expand our character licensing business, including proactively finding appropriate partners. Also, we will be flexible about forming licensing relationships in areas we did not license in the past, such as digital fields, provided we are not in direct competition and we can form win-win relationships.
By moving forward with such activities globally, we aim to increase consumer exposure to Nintendo characters by making them appear in places other than on video game platforms.”
