2018 summer movie preview

For the first time in a decade Marvel won’t be kicking off the summer movie season by opening a movie the first Friday in May! They’ve decided to start summer a week early and will launch Avengers: Infinity War on April 27. If The Avengers was the movie that brought together all the separate heroes in the Marvel movie universe, then Avengers: Infinity War is the movie that will bring together all the teams from The Avengers, the Black Panther contingent to Guardians of the Galaxy and basically everyone else too in order to do combat with the villainous Thanos (Josh Brolin) in a battle that’s been brewing in that cinematic universe for years now.

Deadpool 2

The R-rated surprise smash of 2016 Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is set to return with more superhero movie mayhem with Deadpool 2 on May 18. The movie studio has been pretty tight-lipped with this one plot-wise, other than to reveal it will introduce two fan-favorite comic characters Domino (Zazie Beetz) and Cable (once again, Josh Brolin who really is “Mr. Summer” this year).

A fourth modern Star Wars film, Solo: A Star Wars Story, is due out May 25. Right now, Solo is more well-known for what went on behind the scenes with its original directors being fired months ago and director Ron Howard being brought on to finish the film. Supposedly, Solo will feature the first meeting between the title character played by Alden Ehrenreich and his furry co-pilot Chewbacca sometime before the events of the very first Star Wars.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

The Ocean’s 11 series of movies gets a follow-up with the “don’t call it a ‘reboot’” Ocean’s 8 on June 6. This time, Sandra Bullock stars as Debbie Ocean and will lead the likes of Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter and Mindy Kaling in order to pull of some amazing heist at a stunning local.

Fourteen years after the original film Incredibles 2 blasts into theaters on June 15. The nice thing about this superhero family lead by Craig T. Nelson and Holly Hunter is that even though the first movie took place so long ago it doesn’t really matter since it’s animated and characters don’t have to age when they’re computer generated. Reportedly, this one deals with superhero pop Mr. Incredible (Nelson) playing stay-at-home dad to infant Jack-Jack while Elastigirl (Hunt) is out saving the world.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

A second film in the Jurassic World franchise entitled Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom hits theaters June 22. If the first Jurassic World was a bigger remake of Jurassic Park then Fallen Kingdom sure seems like it’s a bigger remake of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Here, the cast of Jurassic World including Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard have to venture back to the ruined, dinosaur crawling island for one reason or another that I’m sure will make sense within the confines of the movie.

Ant-Man and the Wasp, the sequel to Ant-Man, will skittle into cinemas July 6. The third Marvel movie of the summer, this time instead of having just Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) having to do battle with the bad guys he’ll also be joined with the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) forming an incredible shrinking team.

Teen Titans Go! to the Movies

A sixth (!!!!) Mission: Impossible movie, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, zooms into theaters on July 27. This film franchise might have a lot going against it from its action star Tom Cruise being in his mid–50s, nearly as old as John Voight was in the first one when he played a nearing retirement behind-the-desk Jim Phelps to none of the films in the franchise having a coherent plot. Yet I adore the Mission Impossible franchise and welcome each new one with a lot of anticipation.

One TV series that the pre-teen set is really into these days is the animated Teen Titans Go! which makes its way to theaters in Teen Titans Go! to the Movies also on July 27. This over-the-top series pokes fun at the whole superhero genera with characters like Robin, Starfire and Cyborg who crack-wise and almost never get into fights with the villains. Reportedly the plot to this one has the Teen Titans thinking they deserve a movie too after seeing all sorts of other DC heroes get movies with them stuck on TV.

I can’t wait!

2015 Summer movie preview

With three movies due out it seems as if Marvel Entertainment has bought and now owns the naming rights to summer. The first of which is The Avengers: Age of Ultron on May 1. Really The Avengers Part 2, or is it Iron Man Part 5…, Age of Ultron has the whole team back together again battling the robotic Ulton, one of the most iconic Avengers villains. Much like with the first Avengers flick, the fate of the very Earth will hang in the balance in this film!

Except since there are two more Marvel movies out this summer and a whole slew of Marvel films scheduled for theaters all the way up until 2019, I think the fate of the Earth has already been decided in a corporate board room.

mad_max_fury_road_ver2Mr. Road Warrior himself Mad Max returns to the hellish highways of the apocalypse on May 15 in Max Max: Fury Road. This fourth outing for the character, with Tom Hardy in the title role and co-starring Charlize Theron, has Max trying to rescue a group of fellow apocalyptic travelers from the clutches of a crazed outlaw gang of motorheads.

In other words: More merry Mad Max mayhem!

A remake of the family-scarer Poltergeist is out May 22. I’m interested in this one, if just because the original 1982 film about a girl vanished into the guts of a family’s haunted house gave me the heebie-jeebies as a youngster. I mean, Poltiergeist has one of the kids in the movie being practically eaten alive by a tree one minute and terrorized by a clown doll the next. C’MON!

It helps that this new Poltergeist is being produced by Evil Dead horror auteur Sam Raimi too.

A fourth Jurassic Park movie, Jurassic World, is set to bring a little chaos to theaters June 12. While this is being billed as a sequel to the first three films from 1993 to 2001, to me Jurassic World looks to be an reboot of the Jurassic Park franchise as a whole. The trailer for this one has a slew of people visiting Jurassic Park when something goes wrong that turns loose the dinosaurs to chomp on some unsuspecting folks. Or, it’s a bigger version of Jurassic Park sans the guiding hands of Steven Spielberg.

Terminator: Genesys, the fifth film of that franchise, will “be back” in theaters July 1 with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Due to the vagaries of time travel, this time he’s joined by a young Sarah Connor (now Emilia Clarke) as the two along with Reese (now Jai Courtney) fight off a bunch of different and deadly terminators out to put an end to the Connor timeline once and for all. Or at least until the next movie.

Marvel movie #2 is Ant-Man out July 17. There’s not too much known about this one other than it stars Paul Rudd in the title role of a superhero who can turn incredibly small. But if Ant-Man follows the Marvel Mold™ of late it’s no doubt that the fate of the planet will be in Ant-Man’s teeny-tiny hands.

poltergeist

A fifth Mission: Impossible movie, simply titled Mission: Impossible 5,  is out July 31. Even though I probably shouldn’t I’ve enjoyed the Mission: Impossible movies since the first one was released in ’96. Even if the missions the M:I teams have gone on over the years/sequels have gone from impossible to impossibler to “there’s no way in heck they’d be able to do any of this stuff whatsoever!”

The final Marvel movie out this summer, that’s really a Sony one, is Fantastic Four. A reboot of the Fantastic Four films from 2005 and ’07, this version looks to put a new, darker spin on the big four. Or, if it works it could be the dawn of a new age in the tone of comic book movies but if it doesn’t we might just have another Catwoman on our hands.

Premiering on TV screens before Mission: Impossible in 1964 was Man from U.N.C.L.E., the first series to take inspiration from the James Bond films to a TV series. Now a film version of U.N.C.L.E. is set to close the summer movie season August 14. This 1960s period piece seems to be equal parts Jason Bourne and Austin Powers.