Between Illumination’s upcoming animated Super Mario movie and the upcoming opening of Super Nintendo World, Nintendo is aggressively pursuing new mediums for its IP, but it turns out there were earlier efforts than these that never saw the light of day. For instance, there were years ago rumors of a live-action The Legend of Zelda Netflix series, but nothing ever came of it. However, according to comedian Adam Conover during a segment on The Serf Times, the Zelda Netflix series was real, in addition to a claymation Star Fox series, and they’re both not happening because someone at Netflix squawked.
Conover explains that CollegeHumor was working on the Star Fox series and that Shigeru Miyamoto even came to their offices to discuss the show. However, when the Wall Street Journal reported on Netflix and Nintendo possibly partnering for a Zelda series, the Big N reportedly got spooked and pulled out of both shows.
“I worked at CollegeHumor, and we had a secret project where we were going to make a claymation version of Star Fox with Nintendo,” said Conover. “I know this because Shigeru Miyamoto came to our office, and I remember that because I asked my boss if I could be in the office that day – ‘cause it was the weekend – because I just wanted to watch Shigeru Miyamoto walk by. He told me no and I’m still mad at him.”
He continued to say, “Then, like a month later, suddenly there were reports Netflix isn’t doing its Legend of Zelda anymore. I was like, ‘What happened?’ And then I heard from my boss we we’re not doing our Star Fox anymore. I was like, ‘What happened?’ He was like, ‘Someone at Netflix leaked the Legend of Zelda thing — they weren’t supposed to talk about it. Nintendo freaked out… and they pulled the plug on everything… on the entire program to adapt these things.”
There is likely more to the story than Conover was personally aware of, but Nintendo clearly does not like leaks if this story is fully true. A different Zelda series could theoretically be in the works by now as that WSJ article came out in 2015, but there’s really no telling with Nintendo.
