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Netflix is making a live-action Legend of Zelda TV series

Reports say Netflix with working closely with Nintendo

Zachary Davies Boren
Saturday 07 February 2015 18:04 GMT
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Screen time: ‘The Legend of Zelda’
Screen time: ‘The Legend of Zelda’ (Nintendo)

Video game superstar Link is reportedly getting his very own Netflix series.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the TV adaptation of the hugely successful video game franchise Legend of Zelda is in its early stages.

Netflix envisions the series as a family-friendly Game of Thrones — the HBO fantasy epic based on a book series.

The action-adventure fantasy series follows Link, a normal boy with an excellent bow, and his numerous rescues of the Princess Zelda from the clutches of Ganandorf.

There have been 17 Zelda games since Nintendo released the 1986 original for the NES, with Ocarina of Time considered by aficionados to be amongst the best ever console games.

It's still possible that Netflix or more likely Nintendo will pull the plug before it gets much farther, with the Japanese video games giant notoriously protective of its treasured properties.

A movie based on Nintendo's Super Mario Bros was released in 1993 and it flopped.

Nothing since then has developed very far, but after years of cratering financial figures perhaps Nintendo has been emboldened.

Mario and friends may have returned to profitability last year, but across the board sales remain poor.

A western TV show, if successful, would be a shot in the arm for a company that doing particularly badly outside of Japan.

Netflix has refused to issue an official comment, and Nintendo told WSJ it "doesn't comment on rumours and speculation".

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