Live Action Zelda Series Tricks Fans With Fake Netflix Posters
You know when you see those viral posts online where someone has made up a fake casting? Zac Efron is the new Wolverine, they've cast Lady Gaga in a Death Become Her reboot, Chris Pratt is Mario - oh wait, that happened. Still, in a world where that guy from Jurassic World can play everyone's favourite plumber, it's got us thinking about what big gaming adaptation is next.
Up there with news of Amazon's proposed God of War series, there's been a lot of chatter about who could bring the realm of Hyrule to life. A live-action Zelda series would be a licence to print money, but just like The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the most expensive show ever made and is being dwarfed by House of the Dragon, it's a massive gamble that would take a lot of rupees.
Is There A Live-Action Zelda Series?
Much like Ganondorf, the whispers about a live-action Zelda series are never really dead. However, eager fans were recently duped by a crop of fake posters promoting a live-action The Legend of Zelda series on Netflix. It was even craftier than the Twinrova witches from Ocarina of Time.
The post started doing the rounds on October 5, with artist Dan Leveille sharing the "full cast" for the Netflix series. Alongside the glossy posters, we got to see Tom Holland as Link, Emma Watson as Zelda, and Idris Elba as Ganondorf. It was a who's who of Hollywood A-listers, with the likes of Maisie Williams as Saria, Gemma Chan as the Great Fairy, and even Danny DeVito as Tingle. Personally, our favourite. casting is Steve Buscemi as the downtrodden Dampé.
Of course, it's all a ruse. Leveille has since gone on to admit he made the whole thing up, then ran a few fan castings through an AI. Unfortunately, as Leveille's joke took off, so did the usual racist, homophobic, and transphobic comments. When he shared the post to Facebook, he was inundated with jokes about how this couldn't be the real cast because Netflix would diversify the cast with more people of colour or LGBTQ+ actors. Cue lots of uses of the N-word.
Did Netflix Cancel A Live-Action Zelda Series?
Click to enlargeAs much as we can be annoyed/see the funny side of Leveille punking us all, it's not that hard to imagine a live-action Zelda series nabbing a cast with as much star power as the lineup above. Holland and Elba are no strangers to video game movies thanks to their roles in Uncharted and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but still, the cost to get this cast means you'd probably have to sell the Triforce.
It's disappointing that Netflix already cancelled a proposed live-action Zelda series. Although there's no word on who could've been cast, it was canned around 2014. Remember this was before Netflix realised video games adaptation could earn it the big bucks like with The Witcher, so there could be hope in the idea yet. To be honest, we wouldn't be surprised if someone in Netflix HQ simply scooped up this list and phoned these actors now - there you go, a ready-made Zelda series.
