The wait just got a little shorter for Nintendo’s return to live-action movies.

With the smash-hit success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie in 2023, and its recently released sequel The Super Mario Galaxy Movie getting a similarly enthusiastic response from audiences, there’s been a lot of talk about how long it took for Nintendo to come around to the idea of theatrical adaptations of its games. However, as CG animated features, both movies have the benefit of being close in nature to video game graphics, making it easier for Nintendo to step in and advise the production team on how to preserve the visual storytelling characteristics that give the Mario games much of their unique charm.

The hurdle is going to get higher, though, with the upcoming Legend of Zelda movie, which is going to be the first live-action movie based on a Nintendo game since the disastrous 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie. There are a lot of reasons why the 1993 Super Mario Bros failed to please audiences, but the quick summary is that it had an unfocused tone and visual design, making it feel not enough like a Super Mario story for fans, and also not enough like its own thing to captivate viewers who didn’t care about the source material.

So with Zaleda being the first live-action Nintendo movie in more than 30 years, the company obviously wants to make sure it feels just right. Given that, the news that Zelda’s release date has been changed from the previously announced May 7, 2027 might have you bracing for a delay as Nintendo calls for more fine-tuning. It turns out, though, that the release date is moving in the other direction, and Zelda will be hitting theaters even earlier.

“This is Miyamoto,” says the creator of the Zelda and Mario franchises in his customary manner when authoring tweets from Nintendo’s official account, before going on to reveal that Zelda will now be opening on April 30 of next year, one week earlier than originally planned.

▼ So far, these stills of Bo Bragason as Zelda and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Link remain the only preview images that have been released for the movie.

The date isn’t being moved up because the movie is finished and just sitting around waiting for distribution, though, as Miyamoto reports that the production team is still “working hard to deliver the film to everyone as soon as possible.” That “as soon as possible” sounds like there could be a possibility of skooching the date up even further, but April 30, 2027 would be the first Friday of Japan’s Golden Week spring vacation period, which might be what Nintendo is aiming for if the Zelda movie is getting a simultaneous worldwide release.

Source: Twitter/@Nintendo
Top image: Twitter/@Nintendo
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