Avi Arad Is Producing the Legend of Zelda Movie and Fans Should Be Worried

Summary

• Avi Arad’s track record with non-Marvel movies raises red flags for fans awaiting The Legend of Zelda adaptation.
• The producer’s involvement in Borderlands and Madame Web flops suggests potential troubles ahead for iconic franchises.
• Despite Arad’s mixed Marvel legacy and past flops, hope for The Legend of Zelda adaptation lies in the director’s talent and Nintendo’s involvement.

Two of 2024’s biggest box office and critical bombs, Madame Web and Borderlands, have a lot in common. Both are adaptations of pre-existing material that reportedly underwent heavy reshoots behind the scenes, resulting in year-long delays. Both films opened to terrible reviews from critics and even worse reviews from audiences who watched them crashing and burning at the box office on their opening weekends. They also have one major figure behind both: producer Avi Arad.

Avi Arad is best known for being the CEO of the company Toy Biz in the 1990s and, soon afterward, became the chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment. Arad was responsible for pushing Marvel Comics into films. While he certainly is partially to thank for hits like X-Men, Spider-Man, and the eventual birth of the MCU, he was also responsible for many issues behind the scenes.

Despite being one of the founders of the MCU, he departed before it took off, as Kevin Feige replaced him. Arad still has a role in Spider-Man-related projects at Sony Pictures, like Venom, Morbius, and the Spider-Verse films, but has been looking for the next big franchise.

Borderlands and Madame Web should have fans worried as Arad’s next project is one many fans are excited about in the popular video game series The Legend of Zelda. With Arad’s track record, there might be more to fear.

Arad’s Non-Marvel Movies Have Been Misses

In May 2006, Arad resigned from his position at Marvel to form his own production company, Arad Productions. Despite having helped form Marvel Studios, Arad did not see eye to eye with the new direction, as he saw producing their own films as too risky a venture. He thought that licensing the rights to other studios was better for their bottom line, since if a movie like Daredevil or Hulk performed poorly at the box office, those studios would feel the losses while Marvel itself could profit off the merchandise.

His departure came right after X-Men: The Last Stand hit theaters, and Marvel Studios was entering pre-production on both Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. Arad sold his shares for $60 million. His deal still allowed him a producer credit on Marvel Studios’ Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk and a producer credit and creative say on the Spider-Man film franchise at Sony.

Meanwhile, Arad Productions looked to find the next big franchise, seeing how they saw the potential in Marvel Comics, and when nobody else would, they would strike gold again.

A String of Questionable Decisions and High-Profile Flops

Yet the road has nearly been all misses. The first film was 2007’s Bratz, an adaptation of the popular toyline. Bratz opened on August 3, 2007, and placed number 10 at the box office on its opening weekend, grossing $4.2 million. It currently has an abysmal 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, right between Borderlands‘ 9% and Madame Web‘s 11% score. Bratz‘s was a box office bomb and looked even worse when compared to summer 2007’s other toy adaptation, Transformers.

In 2017, Arad Productions released Ghost in the Shell. The film sounded like a good idea on paper as it would be adapting a critically acclaimed manga that was previously adapted into a beloved 1995 anime film. However, the film caused a great deal of controversy for the decision to cast Scarlett Johansson in the lead role.

It drew criticism of whitewashing, which certainly was made worse by the film revealing that she originally was a teenage Japanese girl and activist named Motoko Kusanagi, who was placed in the body of a white woman, Johannson’s Mira Killian.

This controversy followed Ghost in the Shell, and the movie was another box office and critical flop. It opened at number 3 at the box office with $18 million and closed out its run with $40 million domestically against a $110 million budget that not even a total of $169 million worldwide could save.

The only one of Arad’s non-Marvel-related projects that can be called a hit is 2022’s Uncharted. The film grossed $148.6 million domestically and $470.1 million worldwide and was seen as one of the first post-pandemic blockbusters and another hit for the video game adaptation genre.

The film received mixed reviews, with fans of the games very critical of the movie’s decision to cast Tom Holland as the character of Nathan Drake, making it a significant departure from the video games, further hinting at the trouble The Legend of Zelda has in store for it to get the Uncharted and Borderlands treatment.

Borderlands itself has become one of the worst-reviewed movies of the year, will become one of the biggest bombs of the year, and will likely go down as one of the worst movies made in the past ten years.

Arad’s Trouble at Marvel

Arad is seen as an instrumental figure in getting Hollywood Studios to see the value in Marvel Comics, which is something that can never be taken from him. The early boom of Marvel superheroes in the 2000s that brought X-Men, Spider-Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Punisher, and Ghost Rider to the big screen was thanks to Arad, as being at different studios allowed more movies to be made as opposed to DC Comics films only being produced by one studio, Warner Bros.

Arad saw the potential in Marvel superheroes as blockbuster films at a time when nobody else did, and the studio would not exist today without his work early on. Yet Arad also certainly made things difficult. Since he had so much invested in Marvel toys, he would give notes on Marvel films that would also help sell merchandise.

The most notable example of this is how he pushed Sam Raimi to include Venom in Spider-Man 3, despite the director not having any interest in the character. Raimi conceded and added the merchandisable black-suited Spider-Man and Venom to the film, and while Spider-Man 3 was a box office hit, it was a disappointment for fans who saw it as a significant step down from the first two films.

Arad’s Legacy With Spider-Man Is Complicated

Arad’s Marvel legacy has certainly been questioned following the recent divide between Marvel Studios and Sony’s Spider-Man films. The Amazing Spider-Man films were a disappointment, so much so that Sony had to go and make a deal with Marvel Studios and bring Spider-Man into the MCU to help the character’s long-term box office potential.

While Venom and its sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage were box office hits, a common critique is how much they feel like the early 2000s superhero movies that Arad helped usher in and feel stuck in the past compared to how the MCU has grown the genre of superhero movies. Venom feels like it has more in common with Daredevil or Ghost Rider than Guardians of the Galaxy or Doctor Strange.

Meanwhile, films like Morbius and Madame Web have been box office and critical disasters, becoming the butt of many viral jokes like “it’s morbid time” and “he was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders just before she died.”

Things don’t look much better for Kraven the Hunter,whose latest trailer certainly has fans nervous. Arad’s Marvel movies following the split from Marvel Studios have shown his weakness as a producer, highlighting his worst tendencies and hinting at what might happen with The Legend of Zelda.

Is There Hope for The Legend of Zelda?

The Legend of Zelda is regarded as one of the best and most iconic video game series of all time. With rich visuals, a complex mythology, and a beautiful mythic scope, fans have waited for years for The Legend of Zelda to be adapted to the big screen. Now, the prospect of Avi Arad being the man to help usher it in signals more doom than optimism.

This isn’t the producer of Spider-Man 2 and X2: X-Men United anymore, this is the producer of Madame Web, Borderlands, and Bratz. There are a lot of variables in the air. Arad’s name is attached to some beloved films like the Spider-Verse animated films and also early Marvel hits like X-Men and Spider-Man, yet it seems the less involved he was, the better off the projects became.

A Talented Director and Nintendo’s Attention to Detail Could Provide a Counter-Balance

Now, thankfully, Arad’s films tend to be as good as their director, and with The Legend of Zelda, Arad and Sony Pictures have hired Wes Beal. Beal is coming hot off the critically acclaimed and financial hit War for the Planet of the Apes. That film’s deliberate pacing, beautiful scenery, and classic hero’s journey certainly showed fans that Beal himself was the right pick to helm The Legend of Zelda.

Hopefully, with that and the combined Maze Runner trilogy, Beal will have enough creative clout to push forward his vision of the film being inspired by Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki and put Arad’s more troubling tendencies as a producer at bay.

There is also Nintendo itself to consider. After the disaster of 1993’s Super Mario Bros., Nintendo became extremely protective of its library of characters. Following 2019’s Pokemon: Detective Pikachu and 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Nintendo is not only more open to licensing their characters to other studios to adapt into film but has been actively involved in their development.

While Nintendo might have partnered with Arad due to his history with early Marvel movies, there is also a chance they have a great amount of creative input and might protect the property from Arad’s worst tendencies.

Naruto Fans Should Also Be Worried

It isn’t only The Legend of Zelda fans who should be worried about Arad being involved with their favorite property. Anyone who is a fan of the popular manga and anime series Naruto should be concerned, as Arad is also the producer bringing that beloved property to live-action. Just as fans of The Legend of Zelda can look at how Arad adapted Borderlands and Uncharted, along with how Ghost in the Shell was handled, there is plenty of cause for concern about Naruto.

However, like with The Legend of Zelda, the hope lies in the director. Destin Daniel Cretton will helm the project for Lionsgate. Cretton is best known for character-centric critically-acclaimed films like Short Term 12 and Just Mercy, as well as the blockbuster Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Between Wes Beal on The Legend of Zelda and Cretton on Naruto, these films certainly have a better chance than Borderlands and Madame Web. Yet, given how bad those two films were for critics and audiences, fans are right to be worried about The Legend of Zelda and Naruto until the reviews come in.