Why Netflix's Legend Of Zelda Series Was Canceled

It's genuinely sort of weird that we haven't gotten a TV series based on "The Legend of Zelda," right? This venerated Nintendo property, which released its very first game (simply titled "The Legend of Zelda") back in 1986 and has been going strong ever since, centers around Link, a typically silent character who's tasked with the relatively simple goal of saving the titular princess Zelda. (I say "relatively" because, truthfully, a lot of the games in the "Zelda" franchise are anything but easy; just ask anyone who braved the Water Temple in "Ocarina of Time.") 

Once the original game franchise kicked off its 3D era with installments like the aforementioned "Ocarina of Time" (believed by many, including myself, to be one of the best video games ever created) and its offbeat sequel of sorts "Majora's Mask," the "Zelda" games became more and more cinematic as time went by, from the super-stylized cel-shaded world of "The Wind Waker" for GameCube to modern iterations like "Breath of the Wild" and "Tears of the Kingdom," which make you feel like you're actively in a fantasy movie while you're playing them. So, why hasn't there been a TV show like there was for another huge Nintendo game series, "Pokémon?" Why didn't an animated show ever materialize? According to a few sources, it all comes down to some unfortunate leaks.

Information about an apparently canceled TV show based on "The Legend of Zelda" came, inexplicably, from comedian Adam Conover, known for hosting the series "Adam Ruins Everything" (and, these days, sporadic appearances on /Film's favorite streamer Dropout). According to Eurogamer, Conover, who was involved with a series based around another Nintendo game franchise (specifically, "StarFox"), sat down with the "Serf Times" podcast in 2021 to explain what he thought happened.

After saying that, as a CollegeHumor employee at the time, he'd been tasked to work on a Claymation "StarFox" project for Nintendo, Conover mentioned that a leak caused the abrupt cancellation. "Then, a month [after the initial meeting], suddenly there were reports Netflix wasn't going to do its 'Legend of Zelda' anymore," Conover shared. "I was like, 'What happened?' And then I heard from my boss we weren't doing our 'StarFox' anymore. I was like, 'What happened?' He was like, 'Someone at Netflix leaked the 'Legend of Zelda' thing, they weren't supposed to talk about it, Nintendo freaked out ... and they pulled the plug on everything, the entire [program] to adapt these things."

The article in question ran in 2015 in the Wall Street Journal and announced a potential "Zelda" series, so this is, we can assume, the "leak" that Conover was talking about (which made it all the way to the WSJ). That would certainly explain why Nintendo never moved forward with what the outlet described as "'Game of Thrones' for a family audience," but these days, there's more movement on a "Zelda" project. It's just not a TV show.

As of this writing, we are still supposed to get a "Legend of Zelda" movie, and we do actually have some concrete details on this project. With an announced release date of May 7, 2027 (though that's obviously subject to change), the film is being directed by Wes Ball (the "Maze Runner" trilogy, "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes"), and Nintendo head honcho Shigeru Miyamoto will serve as an executive producer. 

We also know who will play the main characters of Link and Zelda. Despite fan-casting all over the Internet basically begging Nintendo to cast "Euphoria" star Hunter Schafer as Princess Zelda (because Schafer really, really looks like Princess Zelda), the "Zelda" movie went with two lesser-known performers. British actor Bo Bragason, who you can watch on the Disney+ original series "Renegade Nell" and the British crime series "The Jetty," will play the Hyrulian princess blessed with wisdom and great ancient power. As for the perennially silent Link (the only major character to not get a voice actor in modern era games like "Breath of the Wild" and "Tears of the Kingdom"), he'll be played by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, whom you might remember as young Miles Wingrave from Mike Flanagan's Netflix original "The Haunting of Bly Manor." So, what game — or games — will the "Zelda" film adapt? We don't know yet, but we can guess.

Considering the "Zelda" movie is a live-action take on the game series, I'm putting my weight behind three major contenders for its source material: "Ocarina of Time," "Breath of the Wild," and "Tears of the Kingdom." Come at me with complaints about recency bias all you want about those last two, but you know I'm right; "Majora's Mask" is just too weird for the first "Zelda" adaptation, "Skyward Sword" and "Twilight Princess" are a little too ambitious from a live-action perspective, and you'd lose all the charm of "Wind Waker" if it wasn't super-stylized. "Ocarina of Time" feels like a somewhat obvious choice; it is, as I mentioned, probably the most beloved 3D "Zelda" game, and the story, split between two distinct timelines with Link as a young boy and as an adult, is extremely linear, which might give it an edge when it comes to the adaptation process.

Things get a little murkier when you look at "Breath of the Wild," the first open-world game in the "Zelda" franchise, and its "sequel," "Tears of the Kingdom." (The latter is only a sequel to the former insofar as it briefly mentions past events and uses the same map. However, weird inconsistencies, like the fact that barely any "Breath of the Wild" characters seem to remember Link, sets the two games apart.) Because of the largely nonlinear structure of both open-world "Zelda" games, they might be tougher for Wes Ball and his team to adapt. But if they decide to take on one of those, they're probably up to the challenge.

Whether or not we ever get a "Zelda" TV show is anyone's guess, and my assumption is we won't ... but at least there's a "Zelda" movie coming.