The Legend of Zelda movie from director Wes Ball and Nintendo will arrive in theaters a little bit later than anticipated. The live-action Zelda movie, which had been previously slated for a March 26, 2027 release date, has been bumped a few months back, to May 7, 2027. According to Deadline, this move will potentially free up The Legend of Zelda for a better weekend, since Disney has an untitled movie planned for the original March 26 release date which could have made for fierce competition. Now, Zelda will have a chance to kick off the summer box office for the year.
Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto announced the change on Twitter/X. "For production reasons, we are changing the release date of the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda to May 7, 2027," he wrote. "It will be some weeks later than the release timing we originally announced, and we will take the extra time to make the film as good as it can be. Thank you for your patience."
This is Miyamoto. For production reasons, we are changing the release date of the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda to May 7, 2027. It will be some weeks later than the release timing we originally announced, and we will take the extra time to make the film as good as it…
— 任天堂株式会社 (@Nintendo) June 9, 2025
While movie delays are rarely good news for fans, this one is pretty innocuous. The Legend of Zelda movie is only being delayed by around a month-and-a-half, and there's little doubt that the time will be helpful to the team behind the movie to make it even better. We'll hardly notice it.
The Legend of Zelda movie is being co-produced by Nintendo and Avi Arad's production company Arad Productions, with Sony co-financing the movie and handling distribution. That's a few large companies with their hands in this production, so it's no surprise they want to find the perfect date to launch it on for maximum impact.
Steam seems to be picking up on The Legend of Zelda movie
This isn't the first time we've been talking about The Legend of Zelda recently. At the end of May, reports began surfacing that Euphoria actor Hunter Schafer was being considered to play the role of Princess Zelda. So far, we haven't had any official castings, but the rumbles are rumbling, which can often be a sign that conversations are indeed beginning to happen behind closed doors. Hopefully we start to find out more about the movie in the coming months.
The timeline for The Legend of Zelda also makes me curious about the next Planet of the Apes movie. Wes Ball directed the last film in the franchise, 2024's Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. That film did well enough that Disney is reportedly interested in a full trilogy of films. But if he's directing The Legend of Zelda and that has a solid mid-2027 release date, the timing could get tricky. Part of me wonders if Ball will do Zelda next, then return to the Planet of the Apes.
Regardless of the order Wes Ball tackles these movies in, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes convinced me he's a perfect fit for The Legend of Zelda movie. “My whole life has led up to this moment," Ball said in late 2023 when the film was first announced. "I grew up on Zelda and it is the most important property, I think, that’s untapped IP, if you will. So we very much are working hard to do something. We’re not just trying to do it because we can. We want to make something really special.”
Here's hoping he, Nintendo, and the rest of the team behind The Legend of Zelda live-action movie do just that. We'll have our ear to the ground for updates.
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