The New Zealand actor Sam Neill completed filming of a role in the forthcoming adaptation of The Legend of Zelda video game before he died, which will be one of his final screen appearances.
According to a report in Deadline, Neill, who died of pneumonia last month aged 78, will appear in the live-action movie, which finished filming in April this year and is set for release next May. Which role Neill plays has not been announced, but fans of the games have suggested that he would be a good casting choice for the King of Hyrule, the fictional fantasy realm in which the Zelda games are primarily set.
Neill had also filmed parts in Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, which is scheduled for release in next March, and The Last Resort, a romcom in which he plays the father of the female lead, Daisy Ridley, also scheduled for release next year.
Since the original Legend of Zelda game was published by Nintendo in 1986, more than 20 titles in the main series have been released, along with various spin-offs and remakes. An estimated 170-190m copies have been sold, making it Nintendo’s most popular franchise after the Super Mario Brothers and Pokémon series. There have already been manga adaptations and an animated TV show based on Zelda, but the forthcoming production will be the first film adaptation.
Two English actors, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth and Bo Bragason, play the lead roles of Link and Princess Zelda. The film is directed by Wes Ball, who is also responsible for the YA Maze Runner trilogy and, most recently, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.
Neill had an extensive and varied career in film and television spanning five decades, but was especially loved for his work in horror and fantasy cinema, including Possession, Omen III, In the Mouth of Madness and three Jurassic Park films.
