Discussion What form of Video content would fit Zelda (and other Nintendo IPs) the best?

[Beelzemontheworld]

I will be begging for a Splatoon sports anime until the day I die. And no turf war prodigy plot lines. Just a rag tag group of 4 coming together to rise up the ranks, struggling through turf wars, making extra cash with Salmon Run jobs, slice of life content with the other denizens of the Splatlands/Inkopolis. Rival groups that get their own stories explored, then when splatfests happen we can have unlikely Allies plot lines were the main characters pick different teams and get paired up with their rivals so they need to work together. I can see it so clearly. Realistically they’d have to include some of the plot lines from single player but blah! I want the focus on the competitive/sports nature of it all.

I also think Kid Icarus has great potential for a Saturday morning cartoon type of thing, so if they could do that alongside an Uprising remake and sequel that would be great. Just something about all the characters and their interactions in Uprising were great and I think that definitely deserves to be explored more. Pit just interacting with the denizens of the kid Icarus world, fighting evil, etc. with a plotline building in the background throughout.

Zelda definitely I would want to be animated, I guess probably Dreamworks seems realistic. Although I’d love a hand drawn 2D art style especially with the Breath of the Wild and Mononoke parallels but Ghibli will never do it and if they did we’d get a bad movie from Goro so no thanks : (

Black and white mostly silent thriller film for Metroid

 

[WestEgg]

 

[Galgavias]

It would probably make sense to keep Illumination focused on the Mario orientated properties if they do end up doing more (let's be honest, after that opening weekend, they're going to be doing more). There's plenty of film ideas they could mine on that side; DK, Luigi's Mansion, a Wario anti-hero movie, all culminating in a special movie in 2035 to commemorate Super Mario Bros 50th anniversary.

As for the other Nintendo properties, well Zelda, Animal Crossing and Splatoon would all be no-brainers for films. Maybe they could get Dreamworks involved in these. People have mentioned Puss in Boots 2 (which I still need to see) as an influence for a Zelda movie but also consider that the How to Train your Dragon films could offer a similar template. Plus they have that Ruby Gillman film coming out which has a whiff of Splatoon about it.

I can see live action Metroid happening if Brie Larson is still eager to play Samus, especially with the taboo about primarily helmeted protagonists being broken by The Mandalorian. Fire Emblem could work as an animated series ala Arcane. I've seen some mentions of a Starfox TV series taking influences from Thunderbirds - aka the series that inspired Miyamoto - by fusing puppetry with CGI in a 'threat of the week' format, which is a solid option.

Either way, we're getting more Nintendo multimedia stuff for sure now. A shift to becoming an entertainment company with video games as their bread and butter has been their gameplan for a while now, and it's off to a flying start. What's more, Universal are going to be desperate for whatever Nintendo can offer them. They've been left behind by the other studios in the IP ownership races, and having access to all of Nintendo's franchises will be a temptation they won't pass up.

My pie in the sky dream, a Last Airbender style animated series retelling the original two Golden Sun games.

 

[Machrider]

Dreamworks, Illumination are basically all under the Universal umbrella, so Nintendo is likely welcome to work with either. As people have said Chris Meledandri, who is head of Illumination was also executive producer on Puss In Boots: Last Wish from Dreamworks.

Probably though as I've said, I think Nintendo will have its own division at Universal (provided they pay up to keep rights on all Nintendo movie IP), because Illumination is not going to be able to handle all the movies that Universal + Nintendo are probably going to want to make.

But yeah I think at this point an animated Zelda movie in the style of Puss in Boots, but leaning more into Japanese anime could really be beautiful and do a lot of money box office wise AND (also important to Nintendo I think) set up an animated version of Zelda/Link which then can be used to cross into Nintendo's other animated movies, specifically a Smash Brothers film.

Once they are really comfortable in their abilities with animation, maybe like 10 years from now they can try a Zelda movie in live action.

That's just my guess, but hey who knows, maybe their vision for Zelda is live action like right now and/or Universal will push for live action as they kinda need live action content too. Fast & Furious Vin Diesel IP is on its last installment, Jurassic World IP is big but how many times can you really keep doing the "oh no the dinosaurs are loose and killing people" thing, last JW film saw a sizable decline in box office even though they brought back the OG cast which leads me to believe the drops will be worse next time around.

Also I'll say for Zelda, I could see something where the prologue of the film is maybe done in an anime style and then the main movie is more Western CG style, you can play with art styles a bit (especially if the opening scene like many Zelda movies takes place in the past). That would echo what Nintendo did Mario's voice in the Mario movie by acknowledging it in-movie and then moving on.

 

[Brock Reiher]

If they do plan to adapt other franchises, I would think Pikmin is definitely one of the first. Miyamoto was heavily involved with the Mario movie, and he's been very passionate about Pikmin for a long time. Seems like the natural extension of those 3DS videos.

 

[freedomseekr]

I'd argue, Zelda would work best as an anime OVA or the modern equivalent. Short series, maybe 5-6 episodes, each about an hour to max an hour and a half long.

Metroid... probably a 3D animation in the style of something like the FF movies, but with a focus on the more claustrophobic and horror trappings of the series (sans diving into horror too hard, more Aliens and less Event Horizon).

 

[Machrider]

Doing some small scale anime for Zelda isn't gonna happen.

This is going to be a feature film that has the potential to be a billion+ earner and a massive franchise in its own right.

The point of these Nintendo movies is not to present the properties "in the most ideal way", it's to do the thing that brings these IP the most mainstream attention and things like anime series' are not going to touch what a feature film can do.

 

[lexony]

Doing some small scale anime for Zelda isn't gonna happen.

This is going to be a feature film that has the potential to be a billion+ earner and a massive franchise in its own right.

The point of these Nintendo movies is not to present the properties "in the most ideal way", it's to do the thing that brings these IP the most mainstream attention and things like anime series' are not going to touch what a feature film can do.

Not necessairly talking about OVAs, but Animation shorts is definitly something they should do. Videos like those are proven to be highly popular and can easily be shared all over social media platforms, to all kind of target groups. Maybe not on the same level like a movie, but a regular output of short Zelda Videos could already have a huge impact on brand awareness, merch sales etc., just for a cheaper price.

 

[ZephyrPhoenix]

Xenoblade, Fire Emblem, and Zelda are basically anime material IPs. Or at least animated shorts with the latter two.

Although all three would have to be long running series instead of the modern standard of 12-13 eps that anime tend to have nowadays.

 

[robertman2]

Animated Zelda movie by Fugtrup would be the best option imo

For a serious answer, I just want Metroid to be live action. Animated Metroid would get turned into some kiddie crap.

 

[Machrider]

Not necessairly talking about OVAs, but Animation shorts is definitly something they should do. Videos like those are proven to be highly popular and can easily be shared all over social media platforms, to all kind of target groups. Maybe not on the same level like a movie, but a regular output of short Zelda Videos could already have a huge impact on brand awareness, merch sales etc., just for a cheaper price.

I don't think you want to devalue your brand with cheap/free content like that. Like imagine they had a bunch of Mario shorts before the movie, I think it would diminish the impact of the movie because you'll have seen what their vision for a Mario animation is like before the movie itself (roughly).

Part of the appeal and whole thrill of the movies is to simply see the characters realized in a movie format with a large (relatively) budget behind it and how that is done, if you water that down by showing people it beforehand or doing something lesser, you kind of water down the whole appeal of the movie concept.

Zelda is going to be a billion dollar film franchise unless they totally botch the execution on it, they don't need shorts/shows to get it there, they just need a good movie and about 2-3 years to produce it. Probably with a massive theme park attraction coming as well. They will follow the same formula as the Mario movie, because if it ain't broke, why fix it.

Now for IP that aren't large enough to carry a movie, like a Star Fox for example, sure maybe an animated show makes sense there, but even there I think as Nintendo you want to be very careful at the moment as to how you're presenting your IP because I think the long term goal is to build to a Smash Brothers movie that brings together a bunch of your IP. And maybe part of the fun of that is keeping these IP under wraps until then, so there's a big thrill when you see them on a big screen for the first time.

 

[lexony]

I don't think you want to devalue your brand with cheap/free content like that. Like imagine they had a bunch of Mario shorts before the movie, I think it would diminish the impact of the movie because you'll have seen what their vision for a Mario animation is like before the movie itself (roughly).

Part of the appeal and whole thrill of the movies is to simply see the characters realized in an animated format with a large (relatively) budget behind it and how that is done, if you water that down by showing people it beforehand or doing something lesser, you kind of water down the whole appeal of the movie concept.

Zelda is going to be a billion dollar film franchise unless they totally botch the execution on it, they don't need shorts/shows to get it there, they just need a good movie and about 2-3 years to produce it. Probably with a massive theme park attraction coming as well. They will follow the same formula as the Mario movie, because if it ain't broke, why fix it.

I disagree, I think it is possible to have both. Mario is much more cohesive with it‘s world and Artstyle, there is much less room to experiment. With Zelda I could see them having short animations similarly to the Pikmin shorts, I would not take anything away from a high profile Zelda Animation picture.

 

[Machrider]

I disagree, I think it is possible to have both. Mario is much more cohesive with it‘s world and Artstyle, there is much less room to experiment. With Zelda I could see them having short animations similarly to the Pikmin shorts, I would not take anything away from a high profile Zelda Animation picture.

Maybe after the movies are a success, you want to keep a premium on the whole thing of "how will Nintendo do a Zelda/Mario/Smash movie?", that is a big part of the whole draw of the thing. Like Disney established Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Avengers as top tier movie brands first and then they've done smaller scale TV shows for Disney Plus (but even that, Nintendo doesn't really have a streaming video service to have to sell so there's not as much motivation to do that).

Frankly too, Nintendo now is in a position where they're "too good" for a lot the lower hanging fruit. They've hit the big time in Hollywood now. They don't need to do small scale shit if they don't want to.

It's a new day, new age, like the Mario movie is going to change Nintendo basically forever I think. It's success cannot be understated.

I think for Zelda, even development wise the big part of it for Nintendo (and probably Miyamoto) is for them to say "this is how WE see Zelda, and how WE do it", just as they controlled how Mario would be seen in the world of movies/animation too. That is important to Nintendo, I don't think they want to be loosey goosey about it and have like "well this is one version of Link done by some anime studio, here's a movie version," ... no ... it's all about this is how Nintendo does it.

I think actually for Mr. Miyamoto this is basically going to be his life's work now for the rest of his career ... his responsibility to Nintendo now is to basically set the standard for what Mario (sequels), DK, Zelda, eventually Smash (with lots of other Nintendo IP) are going to be like in movie format and not let someone else come in and fuck around with it. That and building theme park attractions, he's basically going to be working like Walt Disney literally for the rest of his career I think (this will take 10-15 years).

 

[lexony]

Maybe after the movies are a success, you want to keep a premium on the whole thing of "how will Nintendo do a Zelda/Mario/Smash movie?", that is a big part of the whole draw of the thing. Like Disney established Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Avengers as top tier movie brands first and then they've done smaller scale TV shows for Disney Plus (but even that, Nintendo doesn't really have a streaming video service to have to sell so there's not as much motivation to do that).

Frankly too, Nintendo now is in a position where they're "too good" for a lot the lower hanging fruit. They've hit the big time in Hollywood now. They don't need to do small scale shit if they don't want to.

It's a new day, new age, like the Mario movie is going to change Nintendo basically forever I think. It's success cannot be understated.

Yeah I see that they should definitely further pursue big productions. Though I believe that they can simultaneously do video content from anime to "small scale shit" in all kinds of ways. Like they did the Pikmin shorts or that Parental Video. Or how Pokémon is having an anime, various shorts and movies. Another good example for this would be Sonic. It has all kinds of video content while still having established a relatively successful movie franchise. Why shouldn‘t be the same possible for Zelda?

 

[Machrider]

Yeah I see that they should definitely further pursue big productions. Though I believe that they can simultaneously do video content from anime to "small scale shit" in all kinds of ways. Like they did the Pikmin shorts or that Parental Video. Or how Pokémon is having an anime, various shorts and movies. Another good example for this would be Sonic. It has all kinds of video content while still having established a relatively successful movie franchise. Why shouldn‘t be the same possible for Zelda?

I think for Zelda, Nintendo is going to now tightly control it and focus on a movie (whatever form that takes, animation or live action or some mix even possibly) and probably a Zelda based Universal Studios theme park attraction.

Like we have had Zelda animated shows, manga, comics, etc. in the past.

Now is time for Nintendo to show the world how they would do Zelda in the biggest format possible and I don't think they take that casually. So I don't think an animated spin off or alternate take show is in cards. Especially if the movie is animated too (and not live action ... which I think is likely) ... they will want people to focus on one animated version of Zelda and that will be the one that Mr. Miyamoto and Universal (or which ever studio Nintendo chooses to work with) come up with ... not "Japanese anime studio XYZ".

Like I said this is now Mr. Miyamoto's life's work for basically the rest of his career. It's now basically his duty to Nintendo to make sure that Zelda is adapted as well as Mario was so that Nintendo has at minimum a multi-pronged movie business that rakes in the cash, not just for one movie or a few years ... this is going to be a business pillar for them that should (if done correctly) be something Nintendo can turn to even 20-30 years from now.

I think that is the focus, doing smaller type things (like the Pikmin shorts, which were done I think mostly so Miyamoto could understand better the mechanics of animation and storytelling in short form) I don't think is Nintendo's big priority right now. They got bigger fish to fry.

Even now I think like it random animation studio came to Nintendo and said "let us do a Saturday morning type Mario hand drawn series, Mario is hot babeeeee! Lets milk it with tons of animated projects!" ... Nintendo's answer would probably be a firm "no" now, whereas five years ago maybe that's a yes. They don't want anything taking away from the animated movie version of Mario.