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The producer of the smash hit critically acclaimed masterpiece 'Borderlands' is also producing The Legend of Zelda

nial

Member
How on earth did they opt for live action Zelda instead of anime, when the new games already took so much from Ghibli films.
Anyone unironically asking for this is a fool, Nintendo wants full-on global appeal; there's a reason the Mario movie was made by the one of most popular animation studios for children, situated in California.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
Nice, maybe we'll get a movie that's up there with the original Super Mario Bros. (1993) movie?

Trying Not To Laugh GIF
 

Krathoon

Member
He was also the producer of the 2 Spider-Verse movies. Let's not cherry pick. It's annoying how much Avi Arad has his hands on, but let's not pretend he's only ever been involved with shitty movies.
Yeah. I think it will be ok. Also, Miyamoto and company will keep him on track.

I thought the Mario movie turned out really well.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
To be fair, it will take true talent to do a worse movie than Borderlands. But I have faith in this guy, and I believe he can produce even bigger pile of trash!

Godspeed!

snake-salute.gif
 
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Codes 208

Member
Well unlike borderlands you can actually make zelda work while keeping it pg13

The only issue im concerned with is if they cast zelda as some 60 year old or cast kevin hart as link
 

NickFire

Member
Surprised Nintendo would let anyone near Zelda whose resume includes Morbius and Madame Web. I've been told Morbius is the first movie to somehow flop in theaters twice. And I'm pretty sure Sydney Sweeney (bless her glorious heart) was joking about how bad MW flopped when it was still in theaters. Yikes.
 

BlackTron

Member
Nice, maybe we'll get a movie that's up there with the original Super Mario Bros. (1993) movie?

Trying Not To Laugh GIF

Nintendo finally gets over their fear instigated by this one mistake with the tone-perfect Mario Movie, and in overconfidence walk directly into another fuckup that will traumatize them away from the silver screen for a few more decades.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Meh, I doubt this is something Nintendo is just handing over, they’re going to micromanage the crap out of it as with most things they license. If it’s crap I doubt today’s Nintendo would even release it tbh.. I feel like they’d rather have it scrapped in that case.
 

justiceiro

Marlboro: Other M
Nintendo master plan of license it's own character to burn it's biggest rival's money with a guarantee movie flop finally reveals itself.
 

NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt

Biggest Trails Stan
Oookay, but I care more about who the director is, and considering he just gave us this:

Planet Of The Apes Wonderful Day GIF by 20th Century Studios
Planet Of The Apes Horses GIF by 20th Century Studios
Planet Of The Apes King GIF by 20th Century Studios
Planet Of The Apes GIF by Regal


Forgive me for not abandoning ALL hope.

I thought the movie was just good nothing special. It's the fact that Wes Ball is a huge Zelda fan makes me more hopeful
 
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ADiTAR

ידע זה כוח
Nintendo is too paranoid to completely trust their IP in the hands of others, there is no way this dude is allowed free rein.
I don't see how a live action will benefit Zelda, as so many elements will look kinda ridiculous and fake like Gorons. But it's Nintendo who made that call.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
Be afraid.

waj6XAKx_400x400.jpg


Avi Arad is responsible for Borderlands. He also brought us the recent modern classics such as Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius, the upcoming Best Picture winner Madame Web, and the highly anticipated Venom: The Last Dance and Kraven (which is a recycle of the Morbius script with bat blood replaced with lion blood).

Since the man has a laptop filled with epic dirt on Sony chief Tom Rothman, he's given anything he wants to destroy. His next target is The Legend of Zelda.

Be very afraid.
He also produced X-Men, Spider Man, Spider Man 2, X-2, Iron Man, Spider Man Homecoming, Spiderman into the Spiderverse and the sequel.......a lot of hits....but his hits were mostly 10+ years ago.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
He also produced X-Men, Spider Man, Spider Man 2, X-2, Iron Man, Spider Man Homecoming, Spiderman into the Spiderverse and the sequel.......a lot of hits....but his hits were mostly 10+ years ago.

His hits were when Feige was still there. He only had an executive credit on Iron Man and the MCU Spider-Man movies.

The Sony-Marvel deal is that Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach are not allowed to touch the Tom Holland movies. They only get executive credits on it. Feige (Marvel) and Amy Pascal (Sony) produce those movies (Homecoming, Far From Home, No Way Home) because Arad and Tolmach are responsible for what happened with the ASM movies through Madame Web.
 
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Topher

Identifies as young
The Sony-Marvel deal is that Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach are not allowed to touch the Tom Holland movies. They only get executive credits on it. Feige (Marvel) and Amy Pascal (Sony) produce those movies (Homecoming, Far From Home, No Way Home) because Arad and Tolmach are responsible for what happened with the ASM movies through Madame Web.

According to?
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
According to?

The Hollywood Reporter.

Thats the deal that went into place when Holland was cast. Amy Pascal produces on the Sony side through her production company Pascal Pictures, Kevin Feige produces at Marvel Studios. Arad and Tolmach aren't involved, and they produce the Sony Universe of Marvel Characters movies (Venom, Venom Let There Be Carnage, Morbis, Madame Web, Venom the Last Dance, and Kraven).


In addition to Garfield finding himself on the outside of the franchise, director Marc Webb will not be back to complete a third Spider-Man (the studio originally envisioned its Amazing Spider-Man oeuvre as a trilogy with Webb and Garfield aboard for all three). Amazing producers Matt Tolmach and Avi Arad have been downgraded to executive producers, with no real say in the creative direction of the franchise.
 
The Avi Arad hate is overrated. There are worse producers out there. His mistakes are just more high profile. Guy has definitely made some bad moves in hindsight, and I have no idea if he's completely involved with some of these bad talents being chosen to direct and write these awful Spider-Man spin-offs (Why was Venom's writer promoted to director for the latest film?). Avi Arad is also the producer of two of the best Spider-Man cartoons (90's animated series, and Spectacular Spider-Man), and was the guy who believed in a theatrical animated Spider-Man movie (which many laughed at), which he got Miller and Lord on whom proposed using Miles as the star, which Avi agreed. Avi wasn't wrong about Venom's appeal, but he compromised with a director who didn't understand the character with Spider-Man 3, because he was overtly driven by scale, and audience demand, but the talent wasn't there to deliver. Avi is largely a marketer. He would not accept Spider-Man joining the MCU unless Spider-Man was the lead character. He does follow trends too much, and ends up putting out product that's behind the times, and while I completely agree with him that a independent Spider-Man universe can work, it's completely botched by the bad creative's involved, and besides Venom and Kraven, Morbius and Madame Webb are bottom of the rug/least exciting characters you can pull from that verse. They botched the Carnage juggernaut, which should've been saved as a character for a huge event. I don't like the alternate Spider-Man's very much, but the Spider-verse movies were well received, so I think it's only a matter of 'when' for Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen to have their live-action debuts. Eww! Spider-Man eventually teaming up with his enemies makes a lot of sense to me, as we're talking about the Parker luck here (that doesn't seem to exist anymore), so I was all for Villain spin-offs over Avengers cameos, but Sony don't got the chops to put out anything special, and these Villains/Anti-Heroes are just basically acting like heroes in these spin-offs... like c'mon!

Also, I think Avi got a shout-out at the end of No Way Home because the Sony leaks had people laughing at his idea of bringing back Tobey Spider-Man in Andrew Garfield's led Amazing Spider-Man films (any comic reader knows how stupid comic book stories are, so I wasn't laughing). Lo and behold, the most successful Spider-Man movies is No Way Home, which brings all three live-action Spider-Men together on screen. I watched it too, even though I thought the film was garbage. xD It probably would've been a huge hit even without Dr. Strange/Marvel, but hey, who knows how effective these twitter campaigns are that were originally crying about Spidey leaving the MCU after Far from Home. They did largely drive up the hype for the No Way Home Cameos after all.

Lord and Miller are also producing their own Spider-Man live-action universe for streaming/TV, though they are having a heck of a time getting even one project out the door. The first release appeared to be Silk: Spider Society, but it's hitting bumps left and right, and Spider-Man Noir got it's Nicholas Cage announcement, but we'll see how long until it actually finds its way onto streaming platforms. Doesn't sound like it's anytime soon.

Anyway....

I'm neutral with Zelda. It can go either way. Miyamoto is a producer too, and he will have his say. The quality of the movie will largely fall on Wes Ball, and the writing team to conjure a compelling story in a universe we are all familiar with, with Miyamoto making sure the film stays faithful to the Zelda brand, with a creative input or two. I think Avi is here for his Hollywood connections/experience, and his experience with toys, as merchandising will get a big push alongside the film, no doubt. The movie is a big commercial for Nintendo's games, and to get the IP further exposure to a wider audience, as was always the plan ever since the failed Netflix deal.

Edit: I was wrong. Avi Arad did not produce/exe Spectacular Spider-Man. That was Victor Cook (season 1) and Diane A. Crea. Sony Pictures TV, but no Arad involvement from what I can tell. Still my favorite piece of Spider-Man media.
 
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Moochi

Member
There's a lot that can go wrong just in scripting. I think that if we each named the essential elements of the Zelda story, we'd all come up with something different.

For me, the key elements of the story:

1. A lived in world with a long history, with its own myths and cultures.

2. An ancient civilization with advanced tech that seems like magic.

3.The cycle of a hero named Link rising up to defeat an ancient evil.

4. A princess named Zelda who is key to defeating the ancient evil.

I know how Hollywood tells this kind of story and they always screw it up by starting with a ponderous voice over laying all that out as if it's something that needs to be gotten out of the way for the story to be enjoyed, but really what they need to do is get better at incluing and developing the world and it's history through the immediate story.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
I don't see how a live action will benefit Zelda, as so many elements will look kinda ridiculous and fake like Gorons. But it's Nintendo who made that call.
Zelda movie in the same manner as the Mario film would do great. I also think live action Zelda just doesn’t make sense.
 

ADiTAR

ידע זה כוח
I'll say this, if they can do an 80s style movie, kinda like The Never Ending Story, this will be amazing. As long as it's not modern it'll be great.
 
It doesn't matter who's name is making it. As long as it has Zelda in the name and Nintendo behind it. The movie will make 100s of millions of dollars.
 

Ozzie666

Member
I wouldn't panic just yet, Nintendo is pretty hands on and cares about their franchises. They learnt their lesson from the CDI and Mario Brothers Movie (non animated) - I hope.
They did a good job on Mario Animated movie, hopefully they can right the ship for a live action and provide some quality control.

Zelda has great momentum behind it, would be a shame to damage that.
 

jcorb

Member
Big oof. A live-action Zelda was a stupid fucking choice to begin with, but this is going to be rough…
 

Barakov

Member
Be afraid.

waj6XAKx_400x400.jpg


Avi Arad is responsible for Borderlands. He also brought us the recent modern classics such as Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius, the upcoming Best Picture winner Madame Web, and the highly anticipated Venom: The Last Dance and Kraven (which is a recycle of the Morbius script with bat blood replaced with lion blood).

Since the man has a laptop filled with epic dirt on Sony chief Tom Rothman, he's given anything he wants to destroy. His next target is The Legend of Zelda.

Be very afraid.
Drunk Steve Buscemi GIF by Whisky.de
 

bitbydeath

Member
Avi Arad?
It was Eli Roth who directed Borderlands.
Which was a bizarre move for him.
Producers aren’t in charge of movies, it’s the directors who have the final say on everything.
 
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miklonus

Banned
He was also the producer of the 2 Spider-Verse movies. Let's not cherry pick. It's annoying how much Avi Arad has his hands on, but let's not pretend he's only ever been involved with shitty movies.
Hi Avi! Didn't know you posted on neogaf.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
He didn't make Spider-Man 2 good. Kevin Feige was still involved then.

The guy ruined Spider-Man 3 and drove Sam Raimi away. Feige was building Marvel Studios at the time and getting Iron Man ready to go into production.

He's been a menace for decades.

Sam Raimi wanted Ben Kingsley to play the Vulture in Spider-Man 3, because Raimi was really more familiar and fond of the 60's villain line up. Avi Arad forced him to remove Vulture and replace him with Venom because Arad said "kids love Venom it'll sell toys".

He's also responsible for Sony not making Spider-Man movies anymore and Marvel doing them after ASM2 where the movie lost something like $75 million when Arad ignored every single one of Kevin Feige's suggestions on how to improve the movie.
Sorry, I can't take this praise of Kevin Feige seriously when you see what a trainwreck the MCU has been since Endgame. There was a time when I respected him, but he pissed away so much goodwill the last 4 years with absolutely AWFUL films. Sorry dude, but Feige like so many people is a fraud. He needed people like Ike Perlmutter to be successful.
 
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SHA

Member
This has been known for a while.

If there is someone who should be removed from Hollywood, cancelled and forgotten about, is him.

However, this is not his fault. Why did Miyamoto, in his right mind, decided to make Zelda a live-action movie?! I'm sorry, but there is no way the movie is going to be taken seriously. It will be cheese and induce cringe. If it's done like The Lord of the Rings, it will be weird. If it has less production value, it will be awful.

There's one franchise that feels perfectly for live action, and that's Metroid. Practically all other Nintendo franchises should be animated, and they just should play with the animation style depending on the franchise. Did they not learn from the amazing Smash Bros character announcements?

The Zelda movie is going to fail. It's not going to be Mario Bros level of failure, but Hollywood will not lose the chance of messing with it (they even did it with Super Mario Movie), and add stupid, useless things (also americanize many of the characters). Specially with this guy.
Best way to make a video game movie is by giving them a chance for doing commercials like the one from resident evil.
 
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MayauMiao

Member
Be afraid.

waj6XAKx_400x400.jpg


Avi Arad is responsible for Borderlands. He also brought us the recent modern classics such as Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius, the upcoming Best Picture winner Madame Web, and the highly anticipated Venom: The Last Dance and Kraven (which is a recycle of the Morbius script with bat blood replaced with lion blood).

Since the man has a laptop filled with epic dirt on Sony chief Tom Rothman, he's given anything he wants to destroy. His next target is The Legend of Zelda.

Be very afraid.

Eh, Nintendo IP will be fine.

Not the first time they had their IP ruined by Hollywood:

 

ManaByte

Gold Member
Sorry, I can't take this praise of Kevin Feige seriously when you see what a trainwreck the MCU has been since Endgame. There was a time when I respected him, but he pissed away so much goodwill the last 4 years with absolutely AWFUL films. Sorry dude, but Feige like so many people is a fraud. He needed people like Ike Perlmutter to be successful.

rnUbWvG.jpeg
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
it’s the directors who have the final say on everything.

Bullshit. Producers put up the money. If directors had final say we would've had Ben Kingsley as Vulture in Spider-Man 3 instead of Topher Grace as Venom, but since Avi Arad was the producer he told Sam fucking Raimi to pound sand and put Venom in the movie instead.
 
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