The full cast of Netflix’s live-action Legend of Zelda series, featuring Tom Holland, Emma Watson, and Meryl Streep just dropped! Not quite. We’ve been duped again and we’re not even mad about it. Dan Leveille, Director of Product Marketing at Deviant Art and the developer of Equaldex is at it again. Leveille recently used A.I. to generate concept images of Tom Holland as Link in an original Legend of Zelda series by Netflix. The internet had a lot to say about this, especially considering how convincing some of the images were. Leveille followed up on the popularity of the initial post by creating an A.I-generated script in which Link reveals that he’s gay to Ganondorf. We’ve compiled everything here for your convenience, including an inside scoop from Leveille himself.
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Meet The All-Star Legend of Zelda Cast
Leveille was just warming up. In fact, he just created his pièce de résistance. Using a combination of Midjourney, inpainting with DALL-E 2, some facial correction using Tencent ARC, and a bunch of Photoshop, man and machine came to create something incredible. Leveille took to Instagram to share 10 concept images for the imagined series featuring an all-star cast. The 10 near-perfect images include Tom Holland as Link, Emma Watson as Zelda, and Idris Elba as Ganon. Also featured is Maisie Williams as Saria, Jameela Jamil as Urbosa, Sadie Sink as Malon, and Meryl Streep as Twinrova. Choosing Gemma Chan as The Great Fairy, Steve Buscemi as Dampé, and Danny DeVito as Tingle was genius.
Meet Their Creator
Gayety took this opportunity to ask Leveille some questions about his creation and what it means for the future of art and entertainment.
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Gayety: What was your reaction when your concepts started to blow up?
Leveille: I was shocked—it was super exciting to see some major publications pick it up. It also got a lot of hate. I didn’t think much of generating Link as Tom Holland, but the internet was very opinionated: Some people don’t want a live-action Zelda film — they think it would ruin the series. Others think Tom Holland has become too mainstream. And of course, I got a handful of homophobic responses when I generated the gay Zelda script. I was also kicking myself for not making them better. People commented on how Link’s hair is not blonde, how his eyes are off, and how he wasn’t wearing his signature green hat. So I put more effort into it this time and fixed all of those things.
Q: When did you first start using AI to create art? Will AI one day replace creative artists?
A: I started using AI to create art as I got access to Dall-E in July, and I just got hooked. It’s been so fun and so gratifying how you can make such gorgeous and realistic images in just seconds. I don’t think AI could ever fully replace artists. In some ways, it’s making artists even more powerful by letting them quickly concept ideas, make film storyboards, generate textures and backgrounds, and correct parts of photos. I know a lot of artists are already starting to adapt and use AI as part of their workflow. AI art is also making art more accessible to people who want to be creative but don’t have the skillset. For example, I’ve heard of some great examples of writers using AI art to help illustrate their stories.
Q: What do you think the likelihood is of Netflix making this film? Has Netflix commented on your posts?
A: If they can do it right, I hope they do! They were originally working on a Zelda series back in 2015 but it was allegedly canceled due to leaks. I haven’t heard anything about Netflix seeing my posts, but I doubt they would publicly comment on it. With the attention it’s gotten, I’m really hoping Tom Holland has seen it. He’s apparently taking a break from social media right now, so his social media has been silent for the past few months.
Q: What can we expect from you next?
A: I’ll definitely continue doing nerdy AI art. With Nintendo’s upcoming Mario film, I was considering some more Mario content. I want to play around with GPT-3 some more too, generating more scripts or text-based content that I can tie into the AI art. After getting some homophobic responses to the gay Link AI script, I feel like I should do more of it.
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Perhaps the cast of Legend of Zelda won’t be Dan Leveille’s magnum opus after all. We’ll be refreshing our feeds constantly to see what comes next for the talented 34-year-old. We suggest you follow him and do the same.
