The director of the much awaited The Legend of Zelda movie, Wes Ball, talks about the pressure to live up to the enormous expectations that followed the $1.36 billion box office triumph of the Super Mario Bros. film.
Speaking to Variety, Ball noted that, considering the ardent fandom and his personal experiences with the Maze Runner films, it is imperative to do the Legend of Zelda universe right.
Ball compared the enormous burden of translating such well-loved classics to his earlier efforts. Ball talked about the value of listening to what fans have to say while maintaining his artistic vision in the face of the many choices that go into making a movie.
Ball said, “I can’t say a lot about it, but Zelda is hugely important to me. It’s up there with Star Wars for me in terms of what shaped me as a kid. Talking about adventure? That’s the thing. And you’re right, it’s like one of the last untapped properties that is dying for a cinematic treatment. But we’ll see what happens. The expectation game, I got a taste of that with the Maze Runner movies. It was a small fan base, but a very passionate one, and they let me know when I didn’t do it right for them.”
Wes Ball Faces Off Against Several Big Teams
Ball went on to discuss the pressure he is under to deliver his next major project, even as his most recent movie, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, continues to rule the box office.
Ball said, “And it leveled up to a different level on this one, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, where you understand people’s passion for those stories, the Caesar trilogy in particular. So I take it in and then I let it go, because obviously you can’t have that while you’re making a thousand decisions a day. You ingest it and hopefully you make good choices along the way in a string of thousands and thousands of choices that you make. And so I count myself as a gigantic fan, and I trust that in a way as we move forward, and hopefully it lines up with other people that want to see the same thing.”
Ball’s entry into the world of franchise movies started in 2014 when the YA novel The Maze Runner was adapted. Two sequels to that picture followed. Both reviewers and fans have differing opinions about his management of the franchise, despite its financial success.
One of Nintendo’s most cherished brands, The Legend of Zelda, first launched as a 2D game in 1986, is about to get a live-action adaptation following years of anticipation.
