For more than two decades, the first week of May launched the summer movie season with the latest entry in a beloved franchise. In 2002, we got Spider-Man. In 2012, it was The Avengers, followed by Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame arriving the last week of April in 2018 and 2019.
But with the dismal box office receipts that followed Thunderbolts* (released on May 4, 2025), the old heroes have fallen and a new hero has risen to take their place—the Hero of Time, in fact. Nintendo has announced that the live action The Legend of Zelda movie will release on May 7, 2027.
By claiming this all-important date, The Legend of Zelda is further demonstrating that the day of the superhero film has ended and video game movies are on the rise. Just this year, A Minecraft Movie has earned $423,579,000 at the box office, more than Marvel’s entries Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* combined. Last year, only Deadpool & Wolverine outdid Sonic the Hedgehog 3, but The Super Mario Bros Movie took second overall in 2023 (behind Barbie), beating out Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
While it’s tempting to pit the two genres against one another, they have much in common. After all, both superhero movies and video game movies had long suffered the ignominy of adaptations that seemed embarrassed by the source material; the whiny, plastic-eared Steve Rogers of 1990’s Captain America has as little to do with the comics as the cyberpunk Mushroom Kingdom of 1993’s Super Mario Bros. has to do with the video games. Moreover, both genres have rich worlds and fanbases devoted to sharing them.
