The Legend of Zelda film casts two young actors as co-leads Link and Princess Zelda
Two young British actors have been cast as the leads for one of the most challenging film adaptations attempted in recent years.
Buoyed by the reception of The Super Mario Bros Movie in 2023, and having witnessed the popularity of A Minecraft Movie earlier this year, Nintendo is now seeking similar success by turning its celebrated video game series The Legend of Zelda into a movie too.
It's the first attempt to adapt Zelda since an ill-fated animated TV series back in 1989, which was not at all well received.
All involved will be hoping for better results now.
So, the lead actors. Twenty-one-year-old Bo Bragason, best known for her role in the Disney+ show Renegade Nell, has been cast as the titular Princess Zelda.
Bo Bragason at the London premiere for Renegade Nell back in March. Picture: Karwai Tang/WireImage
A version of Princess Zelda from the game Skyward Sword.
Bragason also has credits to her name from TV series Three Girls and The Jetty, plus horror films Censor and The Radleys.
Meanwhile, 16-year-old Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, who was the voice of Pinocchio in Disney's 2022 live-action remake of the children's classic, will play the sword-wielding hero Link.
His credits also include The Haunting of Bly Manor, All Fun and Games and Everything's Going to Be Great.
Ainsworth is facing a rather unique challenge, and so are the writers who will come up with his lines. He's playing a character who, famously, never talks in the game series. At all. Link's only vocalisations are grunts, sighs and other non-verbal noises. It's about as unadaptable a character, for the big screen, as you could imagine.
Benjamin Evan Ainsworth at the Canadian Screen Awards last year. Picture: Isaiah Trickey/FilmMagic
One version of Link, in the game Ocarina of Time, back in the 1990s. Picture: Nintendo
And a more recent iteration, from Tears of the Kingdom. Picture: Nintendo
Nintendo's legendary game director Shigeru Miyamoto announced the double-casting on social media, voicing his excitement.
'This is Miyamoto. I am pleased to announce that for the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda, Zelda will be played by Bo Bragason-san, and Link by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth-san. I am very much looking forward to seeing both of them on the big screen,' he said.
'The film is scheduled to be released in theatres on May 7, 2027. Thank you for your patience,' Miyamoto added.
The film is still awaiting its villain. In most of the Zelda games, Link and Zelda go up against a power-hungry demon king called Ganon, or Ganondorf.
The director attached to the project is Wes Ball, whom you'd know from The Maze Runner, which adapted the young adult novel of the same name, and The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the fourth film in that series.
'I've been thinking about it for a long freakin' time, how cool a Zelda movie would be,' Ball told Total Film last year.
'I want to fulfil people's greatest desires. I know it's important, this franchise, to people and I want it to be a serious movie. A real movie that can give people an escape.
'That's the thing I want to try to create. It's got to feel like something real. Something serious and cool, but fun and whimsical.'
Originally published as The Legend of Zelda film casts two young actors as co-leads Link and Princess Zelda
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