Nintendo, fresh from its success with Super Mario Bros movie, doing another play on the silver screen. On Wednesday, the video game company introduced Shigeru Miyamoto, the game’s famous designer Mario To announce a new film inspired by one of his other creations: Legend of Zelda.
The company is working with Sony Pictures Entertainment to produce the film, which will be co-produced by Miyamoto and Avi Arad, founder of Marvel Studios and producer of Sony’s “Spider-Man” films. “We have now officially begun development with Nintendo itself heavily involved in production,” Miyamoto wrote. Statement on X.
Nintendo released the first game in the Zelda series in 1986. The series now consists of 19 games and three remakes. The two most recent Zelda titles—2017 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild And 2023 The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom Tears– Among the top ten most popular Nintendo consoles, with 31.2 million and 19.5 million copies sold respectively.
The video game company is trying to leverage its portfolio of intellectual property to create new revenue streams.
Nintendo worked with Illumination, the creator of the game Despicable me String, to create Super Mario Bros movie. The film was a huge success, generating $1.3 billion in ticket sales. Mario’s box office take makes it the second biggest film of the year so far, behind only… Barbie.
Nintendo has also partnered with NBCUniversal to create Mario-themed areas at Universal’s theme parks in Osaka, Japan, and Los Angeles.
The company said in a statement announcing the new release: “Nintendo is working to create new opportunities to enable people from all over the world to access the world of entertainment that Nintendo built, through various means apart from their designated game consoles.” Zelda film.
Nintendo shares rose about 6% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
Nintendo on Tuesday reported net sales of 796.2 billion yen ($5.28 billion) in the first half of its fiscal year, which ends in March 2024. This is the highest semi-annual revenue reported since the company launched its Switch console in 2017. The company also updated its earnings forecast for the fiscal year, forecasting net earnings of 420 billion yen ($2.79 billion), up from a previous estimate of 340 billion yen ($2.26 billion).
But Nintendo has stuck to a less optimistic forecast for sales of its now seven-year-old console. The company is sticking to its goal of selling 15 million Switch consoles this fiscal year, which represents a 16.5% decline from the previous year.
