In February, an anonymous source told the Wall Street Journal that Netflix was in the process of developing a live-action TV adaptation of the best-selling “Legend of Zelda” video game, only to have the rumor quashed by Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata last week.
Even if Nintendo has assented, the project would have likely languished in development hell. The online reaction to Netflix’s trial balloon was swift and unyielding; the fans of the game simply did not want to see their treasured childhood memories desecrated by a dramatic reinterpretation.
Hollywood’s attempts to translate video games to the silver screen are strewn with failures, with successes only to be found in an incredibly narrow vein. “Tomb Raider” and “Resident Evil” were both profitable franchises, but only as generic, mind-numbing action flicks with barely enough material to stretch across 90 minutes.
The adventure element of the Zelda series, which locates it closer to “Gulliver’s Travels” than “Mortal Combat,” makes even such a low target unobtainable. The character Link’s uniform is klutzy and his adversaries are more like bizarre wildlife animals than archetypical villains. It’s no wonder that Netflix was rumored to adapt Zelda as a TV series in the model of “Game of Thrones” rather than as a movie.
