Avi Arad may be a name most closely associated with Marvel, but just who is the film producer who has now been reported to be working with Nintendo to bring a live-action The Legend of Zelda movie to the big screen?
Arad could be seen credited as an executive producer right alongside Stan Lee’s name on Marvel TV shows and movies since the ’90s onward, with some of his notable early credits being for X-Men: The Animated Series and Spider-Man: The Animated Series, among others. He was also credited with being an executive producer on Bryan Singer’s X-Men films and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films in the 2000s.
A Marvel-ous reputation
Today, Arad’s name can still be seen in movies associated with Marvel, though more often than not they are with movies in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe or adjacent properties, such as Venom and its sequel, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and even the reviled 2022 flop that became a living meme, Morbius.
In 2006, Arad left his longtime tenure at Marvel as the head of TV and film projects, a title granted to him by the company back in 1993, according to the book MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, and Gavin Edwards. It was during the mid-’90s amid Arad’s tenure that Marvel Studios was founded. However, it would not be until 2008 that the film company truly took off with the release of Iron Man and Kevin Feige being named president of Marvel Studios.
Speaking of Feige, Arad has served as a co-producer on many films alongside him, including movies in the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises as well as the more recent Tom Holland-starring trilogy. Arad was also a more prominent name in the credits on more than just the Spider-Man entries of the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For instance, he and Feige produced fledgling entries in the franchise like Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk.
From toy designer to movie producer
Before finding work in the movie and TV business, Arad had made a name for himself as “one of the most successful toy designers in the world,” according to MCU. It was during this stint of his career that he crossed paths with then-Toy Biz owner Ike Perlmutter, the businessman who got his start in wholesaling best known today as orchestrating Toy Biz’s buyout of Marvel in 1998 and creating Marvel Enterprises.
Perlmutter and Arad both emigrated to the U.S. from Israel and they were both veterans of the Six-Day War. With so much in common on a personal level, and with their professional aspirations aligned, it’s no wonder Perlmutter and Arad would go on to form a fruitful business relationship that would include Arad getting appointed to CEO of Toy Biz, and Perlmutter serving as a chairman to the board. When Toy Biz bought the rights to Marvel, Arad worked as an executive and used his marketing genius to help make shows like X-Men: The Animated Series sell more toys by pitching certain plot points apropos of that goal.
Arad is still going strong to this day, with the latest example being the critical and commercial hit executive produced by him earlier this year, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Next up on the horizon will be Arad tackling the world of Hyrule with a forthcoming The Legend of Zelda live-action movie. Zelda and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto himself has even indicated he is personally working with Arad to make the Master Sword-wielding Link and his adventures come to the big screen. As Miyamoto explained in a post via Nintendo’s X (Twitter) account;
“I have been working on the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda for many years now with Avi Arad-san, who has produced many mega hit films […] I have asked Avi-san to produce this film with me, and we have now officially started the development of the film with Nintendo itself heavily involved in the production. It will take time until its completion, but I hope you look forward to seeing it.”
Avi Arad’s top 10 movies, ranked
To celebrate Arad’s forthcoming Zelda movie, for which a release date has not been set, let’s take a look back at the film producer’s top 10 best movies to date, ranked by their critical scores on Rotten Tomatoes (all 10 are “Certified Fresh” on their respective Tomatometer scores).
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (97 percent)
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (96 percent)
- Iron Man (94 percent)
- Spider-Man 2 (93 percent)
- Spider-Man: No Way Home (93 percent)
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (92 percent)
- Spider-Man (90 percent)
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (90 percent)
- X2 (85 percent)
- X-Men (82 percent)
In terms of what’s next for Arad, Zelda isn’t the only video game franchise he’s had his eyes on for big-screen adaptations. Having already produced 2022’s Uncharted, he’s next slated to fulfill a similar role for the upcoming movie adaptations of Metal Gear Solid and Borderlands. In addition, Arad is producing the forthcoming Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse and other Sony’s Spider-Man Universe films, including Kraven the Hunter, The Sinister Six, and The Black Cat, according to IMDb.