There is a whole generation now in its thirties that learned the phrase “ain’t no rule that says a dog can’t play basketball” before it learned most of the actual rules of basketball. That generation has kids now. And that, precisely, is the bet behind bringing Buddy back to the big screen for the first time in nearly three decades.
Ahead of that return, a summer promotion is worth a mention mostly because of how on-brand it is: a series of dog-friendly outdoor screenings of the original 1997 Air Bud, where you are not just allowed but encouraged to bring your own dog. The events roll through Los Angeles, Chicago, and Kansas City in August, pairing the classic film with a first look at the new one, hydration stations for the four-legged attendees and all. Letting people watch a movie about a beloved dog while their own beloved dog sits in their lap is the kind of idea so simple it is almost annoying nobody did it sooner.
But the screenings are the appetizer. The real story is the movie they are teeing up.
Buddy’s First Theatrical Run Since 1998
Here is the fact that reframes this entire thing. Air Bud Returns, opening January 22, 2027, will be only the third Air Bud film ever to play in theaters, and the first since Air Bud: Golden Receiver in 1998.
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If that surprises you, it is because the franchise has been astonishingly, quietly prolific in the background of the culture. After the first two theatrical entries, the series went direct-to-video and simply never stopped. It spun off into the Air Buddies films, about Buddy’s talking puppies, who over the years went to space, saved Christmas twice, and fought supernatural threats. It spawned the Santa Paws movies. All told, the franchise runs to roughly fifteen films. Most people who loved the original have no idea the thing became a straight-to-DVD empire that has been running for a quarter century. Air Bud Returns is that empire finally deciding it has earned another shot at the multiplex.
It Is a Legacy Sequel, and It Knows It
The new film is running the exact playbook that has revived everything from Star Wars to Ghostbusters, applied to a basketball-playing golden retriever, and there is something genuinely charming about how self-aware it is about that.
The story follows Jacob, a grieving twelve-year-old who moves into his late father’s childhood home in the original town of Fernfield, discovers his dad’s old VHS tape of, yes, Air Bud, and then befriends a stray golden retriever he names Buddy. In other words, the movie exists in a universe where the first Air Bud is a movie that these characters have watched, and the new kid is essentially trying to recreate it. Reports from early footage note that the new Buddy at one point walks past a statue of the original Buddy. That is the “legacy sequel passing the torch” beat rendered with total sincerity, and honestly, for this franchise, it fits.
Writer-director Robert Vince has been steering this ship since 2000, so this is not an outside reboot but the franchise’s own longtime custodian bringing it home. The new human cast includes Tracy Ifeachor, Tyler Labine, and young Aydin Artis as Jacob.
Why Theatrical, and Why Now
The most interesting question is why a family film like this is opening in theaters at all, when the obvious modern move would be to dump it on streaming and let the algorithm feed it to parents. The filmmakers’ answer is the smartest thing about the whole enterprise, and it is the same logic that drove the original in 1997: the kids who watched the first Air Bud at ten years old are parents now, and taking your kid to a movie is a fundamentally different act than putting one on in the living room. It is an event. It is a memory. It is the parent handing down a piece of their own childhood in the specific setting where it lands hardest.
This is exactly the nostalgia-reboot instinct we praised in our review of Bumblebee, where a bloated franchise got stripped back down to a small, heartfelt, character-first story about a kid and their non-human best friend, and was immeasurably better for the restraint. Air Bud Returns is chasing that same energy from the family-film end of the spectrum, betting that sincerity and a good dog still work on a big screen. Given how thoroughly the algorithm-fed content mill has flattened family entertainment, a genuine theatrical event built on warmth rather than IP cynicism is easy to root for.
The Details
The dog-friendly screening series runs in August in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Kansas City, with RSVP information available through the film’s official site. Each event pairs the 1997 original with a behind-the-scenes look at the new one and a video introduction from Robert Vince.
Air Bud Returns itself bounds into theaters January 22, 2027, returning to Fernfield, where, as the franchise has always promised, anything is possible when you play from the heart. Bring the kids. Bring the dog. That, clearly, is the whole idea.
