Emma Watson as Zelda and Tom Holland as Link in a Netflix The Legend of Zelda TV series? It sounds too good to be true. And, unfortunately, it is.
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What started as a little bit of curiosity has turned into a full-on internet sensation. Dan Leveille, the director of Product Marketing at DeviantArt and an app developer, took it upon himself to sate his curiosity in wondering what Tom Holland would look like cast in the role of Link from The Legend of Zelda and used AI to create images, posters and a Netflix script for his TV series idea.
While he thought it was quite cool and enjoyed the hilariousness of the script, he never quite thought that the thread would blow up as much as it has. Going with the momentum of the situation, he has now used AI once again to create images for a 10-celebrity cast, and this time it looks even better than the last.
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The Cast
For this round of Netflix The Legend of Zelda AI art posters, Dan Leveille has included Tom Holland as Link, once again in a slightly more refined poster, but also Danny DeVito as Tingle, Emma Watson as Zelda, Gemma Chan as Great Fairy, Idris Elba as Ganon, Jameela Jamil as Urbosa, Maisie Williams as Saria, Meryl Streep as Twinrova, Sadie Sink as Malon, and Steve Buscemi as Dampé.
See the Netflix Zelda posters below:
The Hoax
Going along with the hoax that this is happening and real, Dan pokes fun with comments like the following on his Facebook page:
“The full cast of Netflix’s live-action Legend of Zelda series just dropped, revealing an all-star cast starring Tom Holland, Emma Watson and Idris Elba! 
It looks like the series will bring together a mix of the franchise’s most beloved characters throughout the years. (JK. Made with #midjourney, inpainting with #dalle, some facial correction using Tencent ARC, and a bunch of Photoshop).”
Its clear from his posts saying, “Omg 
Stay tuned! I heard Netflix is about to drop a major Legend of Zelda casting announcement later this week.* 
(*It’s still a joke, guys.)” that he seems to be having fun with it, he has made it very clear that this is not a Netflix project. Unfortunately.
This is the kind of fun that fan castings were made for, it’s not his fault that he just happened to pick a really great cast.
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How He Did It
Where Leveille had simply left Midjourney to do its work in the previous rendition, this time he gave the AI a little help from other AI and human tools. While still letting Midjourney do most of the heavy lifting, he used DALL-E’s inpainting features, corrected the cast’s faces with Tencent ARC, and threw in a healthy heap of Photoshop for a final touch.
Dan shared that this was not quite the cast that he had originally wished for. While working on this project, he had wanted either Anya Taylor-Joy or Florence Pugh to be transformed into Zelda but noted that Midjourney just couldn’t get their faces right. He also noted that the AI seemed to find it easier to use older images of celebrities’ faces.
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