The Legend of Zelda is going live-action
“宮本です。「ゼルダの伝説」の実写映画の企画を数々のヒット作を手がけたAvi Aradさんと長年進めてきました。今回Aviさんに共同プロデューサーをお願いし、任天堂自ら制作に深く関与して正式に開発をスタートしました。完成まで時間がかかりますが、楽しみにお待ちください。”
After seeing that announcement, if you can’t read Kanji and Kana count yourself lucky because it’s some of the worst news we’ve heard all year: there’s a Legend of Zelda movie in the works. It’s not the usual rumour bait, either. It’s coming directly from one of the game’s original creators; Shigeru Miyamoto. Thank God for Google Translate.
“This is Miyamoto. I have been working on the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda for many years now with Avi Arad-san, who has produced many mega hit films,” said the eccentric creator in a post on X. “I have asked Avi-san to produce this film with me, and we have now officially started the development of the film with Nintendo itself heavily involved in the production. It will take time until its completion, but I hope you look forward to seeing it.”
You’d think, considering our review of the stellar Tears of the Kingdom, we’d be a little more excited. That’s what we thought, too. We were even willing to overlook Avi Arad’s chequered production history – until we got a look at who’ll be directing and writing the thing. Directing will fall to Wes Ball – famous for The Maze Runner trilogy (and only that) and if Variety is correct, Derek Connolly will be penning the screenplay. Yup, the guy who wrote Jurassic World.
Everything else about the film such as casting, filming dates and the rest of it are still being kept under wraps. We know it’s being co-funded by both Sony and Nintendo, so we can trust that the movie will, at least, look better than most. Just keep Tom Holland as far away as possible from the iconic green leotard, and we’ll be, for lack of a better word, happy.
You won’t have to wait much longer until GTA 6 is official
We get it. You’ve been hurt one too many times when it comes to Rockstar Games’ next big thing: Grand Theft Auto VI. But if Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier is to be believed (and he usually is), we could be seeing an official announcement as early as this week, according to the outlet’s sources that are familiar with the matter.
The announcement will reportedly coincide with the upcoming game’s first trailer sometime next month, timed to celebrate Rockstar Games’ 25th anniversary. This is possibly the first big leak from a credible source, thanks to his previous reports that later turned out to be true.
Unfortunately, Schreier didn’t give out much more info than that. That’s fine… considering most of the world already has an idea of what sort of gameplay mechanics, systems and story details thanks to that massive leak that showed off in-game footage of the game.
Melon Mobile unveils new Unlimited plans
Melon Mobile, South Africa’s self-proclaimed first fully digital mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that hit the streets a few months back, has been on a bit of a roll lately. Most recently, it launched eSIM functionality, and now it’s following it all up with some Black Friday Unlimited plans which are “designed to disrupt the market and introduce a new era of value, freedom, and flexibility.”
Don’t get too excited just yet. The MVNO’s ‘Unlimited Plans’ aren’t exactly living up to their namesake. At least, not in the ways that matter to most South Africans. Melon’s plans do offer unlimited voice calls and texts but will be limited to their respective data values. That might be worth it for some, but for the vast majority, something from MTN or Vodacom’s catalogue might be more suitable.
Here are the deals on offer:
- Unlimited 5GB Plan – Unlimited voice calls and texts with 5GB of data for R200/m.
- Unlimited 10GB Plan – Unlimited voice calls and texts with 10GB of data for R300/m.
- Unlimited 15GB Plan – Unlimited voice calls and texts with 15GB of data for R400/m.
- Unlimited 20GB Plan – Unlimited voice calls and texts with 5GB of data for R500/m.
- Unlimited 50GB Plan – Unlimited voice calls and texts with 5GB of data for R600/m.
WhatsApp says ads are on the way
If you thought that Meta-owned WhatsApp would avoid ads, it’s time to rethink your naivety. The Meta company is working on a way to pump out more revenue from one of its products. It’s just a question of how and when that’s currently halting the company’s hand.
According to the head of WhatsApp, Will Cathcart, in an interview with Brazilian media, ads will be kept out of the messenger’s main inbox, but it’s fair game for the rest of the app’s real estate. That doesn’t leave much to play with, as the redesigned interface has four tabs to flick between; Chats (inbox), Updates, Communities and Calls.
This all comes after Cathcart denied the rumours of ads coming to the platform at all, before changing his tune to the one we’re hearing now. “The reason I qualified [sic] the answer is that there could be ads in other places — channels or status. For example, channels might charge people to subscribe, they might be exclusive to paid members or the owners might want to promote the channel. But, no, we won’t put ads in your inbox,” Cathcart said.
Honestly, when it’s put like that, it’s a little easier to lower our pitchforks. Until Cathcart pulls out another U-turn at least. At the time of writing, WhatsApp has yet to roll out ads anywhere, so there’s still some breathing room to play with.