In the wake of Wes Ball’s movie Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes releasing in theaters next week, the Zelda movie director assured fans that he vows the live action movie will feel “grounded and real,” according to an interview with Polygon. (And it’s a safe bet there probably won’t be any trains involved, either.)
While Ball stated he couldn’t say much before “Nintendo will pop out of the bushes,” he was able to say that “we’re working hard, and we’re gonna make something great.” Ball also noted that while he initially dreamed of making an entirely Avatar-like motion capture Zelda movie back in 2010, he has now decided that heavy motion capture use “probably isn’t his choice” for portraying Hyrule on the big screen. That dream is now fulfilled through Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which is scheduled to be released in theaters next week.
“Like Avatar, and unlike the other previous Apes movies, there’s about 30 or 40 minutes of full CG in this movie,” says Ball. “Like every leaf, every piece of bark, you know, full CG. So I got to have a little taste of that Avatar experience, where it’s just actors on a mo-cap [motion capture] stage pretending with all [these] crazy boxes and proxies for objects. That was really fun.”
But after careful consideration, Wes Ball now has a revised vision for the live action Zelda movie to be more “grounded” and “real.”
In another interview with The Direct’s Russ Milheim, Ball stated, “we’re working on it. I think it’s gonna be great. Fans are gonna be happy.” He emphasized that the “Legend of Zelda, to me, is one of the most important things ever in my life. You know, next to Star Wars. I’ve played Legend of Zelda throughout my childhood into my adulthood. You know what I mean? I am a fan. I am a fellow fan. I will go to the ends of the earth to make sure that it is the movie we all hope it will be.”
When asked by Milheim when the Zelda movie might get released, Ball replied, “I can’t even tell you that, or Nintendo will come after me.” He was able to say, however, that it’s planned to be released within the next decade.
