Nintendo has some of the most valuable IP in the world from Mario to Metroid to StarFox to The Legend of Zelda. And yet after the Super Mario Bros. movie, the video game behemoth decided to pretty much stay away from live-action or really any agreements with Hollywood. They’re just now starting to come back to Hollywood with an animated Mario Bros movie on the way from Illumination Entertainment, but back in 2015, Nintendo was also considering a live-action Netflix series based on The Legend of Zelda. But then Nintendo decided to cancel the series, and now we know why.

Eurogamer reports that on The Serf Times prodcast, comedian Adam Conover was working on a Claymation StarFoxadaptation, but when The Wal Street Journal leaked word about the Zelda series, Nintendo halted all of its adaptations.

"Then, a month later, suddenly there were reports Netflix wasn't going to do its Legend of Zelda anymore,” said Conover. “I was like 'what happened?' And then I heard from my boss we weren't doing our Star Fox anymore. I was like 'what happened?'. He was like, 'someone at Netflix leaked the Legend of Zelda thing, they weren't supposed to talk about it, Nintendo freaked out... and they pulled the plug on everything, the entire programme to adapt these things."

Obviously, the reason Nintendo is so precious about its material is that it saw in the 90s what happens when careless creatives take liberties with the company’s IP like the with the cringeworthy CD-i ­Zelda games. Nintendo doesn’t really need another company to “boost” Zelda because Zelda is successful on its own. While I’d certainly like to see a live-action adaptation, Nintendo has every right to be protective of what they own. Perhaps if the animated Mariomovies is a success, Nintendo will be a bit more liberal with its adaptations (I’ve argued in the past that Metroid would be a good property to bring to live-action). I’d definitely like to see a studio take us on a trip to Hyrule.