Despite all the harrumphing about the State of Cinema, 2016 turned out to be an excellent year for movies. Maybe the blockbusters weren’t up to snuff, but any year with Moonlight, La La Land, Arrival, Green Room, The Nice Guys, Hell or High Water, Edge of Seventeen, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, The Witch, and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is a good year by me. 2017 has a lot to live up to, and a quick glance at the next 12 months shows a promising slate of small- and big-budget titles (it’s harder to judge indies before they make the festival rounds; no one was talking about Moonlight this time last year). Here are 17 dates in 2017 every movie fan should have circled on their calendar.
February 10: Fifty Shades Darker, John Wick: Chapter 2, The LEGO Batman Movie
Why you should be excited: Unless you’re pumped for Split and xXx: Return of Xander Cage (understandable), the first big movie day of the year doesn’t come until Feb. 10, when Fifty Shades Darker, John Wick: Chapter 2, and The LEGO Batman Movie are released. They’re all sequels, of sorts, to highly successful films (there are a lot of those this year): Darker is a more dangerous (and hopefully campier) Fifty Shades of Grey; John Wick: Chapter 2 promises “twice as much action” as the original; and The LEGO Batman Movie gives the breakout star of The LEGO Movie — voiced by the indispensable Will Arnett — his own adventure. See all three in the same day for a confusing triple-bill.
February 24: Get Out
Why you should be excited: Jordan Peele’s directorial debut isn’t what you’d expect from one-half of the creative force behind Key & Peele. But maybe it should be — the brilliant Comedy Central series regularly addressed social issues like police brutality, cultural appropriation, and racism (sometimes in the same sketch). Get Out takes Luther’s righteous anger, and turns it into a horror movie about an African-American man (Daniel Kaluuya) visiting the parents of his white girlfriend (Allison Williams). The freaky trailer makes the film look like Meet the Parents meets Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?, with a dash of The Stepford Wives. Peele said that Get Out “deals with a protagonist that I don’t see in horror movies,” and if there’s anyone who can add a breath of fresh air to the genre, it’s the guy who helped reenergize sketch comedy.
March 3: Logan and T2: Trainspotting
Why you should be excited: Logan is Hugh Jackman’s third standalone film as Wolverine — after X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine – but it looks like the best of the bunch. Granted, Johnny Cash’s “Hurt,” featured in the trailer, would make anything seem important, but the source material (Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s Old Man Logan) is solid and the premise (Wolverine looks after an ailing Professor Xavier and a young girl) is refreshingly simple, especially compared to the overstuffed X-Men: Apocalypse. As for T2: Trainspotting, well, maybe there will be another Pulp song on the soundtrack?
March 17: Beauty and the Beast
Why you should be excited: Disney’s most recent live-action remake, the surprisingly effective Pete’s Dragon, took an unloved original and turned it into a warm hug. The gamble was low, and the payoff was huge. For the studio’s next project, Disney is putting all its money on red.
Beauty and the Beast is arguably the most beloved animated movie ever — it was the first animated feature to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture — so there’s a lot of pressure on director Bill Condon to not screw up the remake. Luckily, Disney gave him every chance to succeed: Emma Watson is an elegant Belle; Oscar-winning composer Alan Menken wrote three new songs with lyricist Tim Rice; and Ewan McGregor and Ian McKellen could be your new favorite comedic duo as Lumière and Cogsworth.
April 14: The Fate of the Furious
Why you should be excited: Because the last three Fast & Furious movies gave the people what they want, and what they want is non-stop action in glamorous locations, and ridiculous set pieces, and stunts that would kill normal human beings. The Fate of the Furious, the eighth installment in the long-running, gloriously loony franchise, has all that, plus Charlize Theron, Jason Statham doing parkour, a scene filmed in Cuba, no Iggy Azalea, Dom breaking bad, Helen Mirren, and a freaking submarine. Yes, please.
April 28: The Circle
Why you should be excited: Based on Dave Eggers’ thriller of the same name, The Circle stars Tom Hanks as the charismatic leader of a technology company that links your e-mails, social media, and banking information — basically your entire life — into a single operating system. Emma Watson, who’s set to have quite the year, plays Mae Holland, a new employee who quickly learns that maybe complete transparency (and a creepy camera) isn’t a good thing. The Circle is directed by James Ponsoldt, who works in collaborative harmony with his actors, whether it’s Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul in Smashed or Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg in The End of the Tour.
May 5: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Why you should be excited: Two words: Baby Groot.
May 19: Alien: Covenant
Why you should be excited: Has it been long enough? Can we finally admit Prometheus was a not-good movie about dumb characters? The best thing to come from the Alien not-prequel is Michael Fassbender as unsettling android David, who returns in Alien: Covenant, which looks like an improvement over Prometheus in every respect. For one thing, there’s now twice as many Fassbenders (Fassbendi?) — also, Covenant appears to be a creepy return to form for director Ridley Scott. There will be blood. And Xenomorphs.
June 2: Wonder Woman
Why you should be excited: Wonder Woman is not only the first female-led superhero movie in the combined DC and Marvel cinematic universes, it’s also the first live-action movie directed by a woman with a $100 million budget. In the Gal Gadot-starring film, the titular Amazonian princess teams up with Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) to bring an end to World War I. She also hides a sword in her dress, which is impractical but cool. Is there anything Wonder Woman can’t do? Just one: save Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.
June 23: Transformers: The Last Knight
Why you should be excited: Look, I’m only human, and as a human, I will occasionally drop $12 to sit in an air-conditioned room and watch robots fight other robots. I’d say the Transformers series is my guilty pleasure, but I don’t feel guilty for having seen any of them. (Maybe I feel a little bad about Age of Extinction). They’re stupid and obnoxious, but no one does stupid and obnoxious better than Michael Bay, who’s bowing out of the “most iconic franchise in movie history” after The Last Knight. He’s going full Michael Bay with this one. Are there dragons and Nazis and Anthony Hopkins? You bet. I can think of worse ways to spend two hours that somehow feel like five.
July 7: Spider-Man: Homecoming
Why you should be excited: Tobey Maguire was 26 years old when Spider-Man came out; Andrew Garfield was 28 in The Amazing Spider-Man. Tom Holland, who made his web-slinging debut in Captain America: Civil War when he was only 18, is the third actor to play Spider-Man this century, and the first that’s age-appropriate. Peter Parker is supposed to be a wide-eyed teenage nerd, not a member of the Pussy Posse. (Civil War nailed this dynamic by having Spider-Man drop The Empire Strikes Back references during a brawl.) Now Holland gets his own movie in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and to paraphrase Darth Vader, he looks impressive, most impressive. Iron Man taught him well.
July 21: Dunkirk and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Why you should be excited: It’s always going to be A Huge Deal when Christopher Nolan makes a new movie. And everything about his next film looks huge. The World War II-set Dunkirk tells the story of Operation Dynamo, the military effort that rescued over 300,000 Allied soldiers from German forces. The visually stunning film, which stars Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, and some kid named Harry Styles, was shot on IMAX 65 mm, and finds Nolan reteaming with his award-winning Interstellar cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema. Not to be outdone, July 21 also sees the release of acclaimed director Luc Besson’s first movie since Lucy, the eye-popping Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, which looks like The Fifth Element times Jupiter Ascending times Avatar, plus Rihanna as an alien stripper. I can’t wait.
July 28: The Dark Tower
Why you should be excited: I’ll let Matthew McConaughey handle this one: “It’s a fantastic thriller that takes place in another realm, an alternate universe, but it’s very much grounded. For instance, the gunslinger’s weapon isn’t a lightsaber or something; it’s a pistol. I enjoyed approaching my character as if I were the Devil having a good time, getting turned on by exposing human hypocrisies wherever he finds them.” McConaughey left out the part where, as The Man In Black, he’s on the run from Idris Elba’s gun-slinging Roland. That sounds like a fun buddy comedy (even if it’s more of a sci-fi western), and the most promising looking Stephen King book-to-film adaptation in years. There’s a reason The Dark Tower is here, and It isn’t.
August 4: Blazing Samurai
Why you should be excited: I’m not going to lie. There’s almost no chance Blazing Samurai will be good. But it deserves mention, because, well, take a look at the premise: “The story revolves around a scrappy young dog Hank who dreams of becoming a samurai and fights to save the town called ‘Kakamucho’ from becoming a litter box of a nefarious feline warlord Ika Chu, who unveils his grand plan to get rid of the inhabitants.” That’s right, Blazing Samurai is loosely inspired by the comedy masterpiece that is Blazing Saddles — Mel Brooks even voices a “misguided but benevolent leader” Shogun — except with dogs (Michael Cera) and cats (Samuel L. Jackson) instead of Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder. Kids love Laurel and Hardy references, right?
August 11: Baby Driver
Why you should be excited: Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man fell through (for reasons still largely unexplained), but the director of the Cornetto Trilogy got something better: Baby Driver, an original action movie about a getaway driver (Ansel Elgort) who tries to leave his life of crime after he falls in love with a girl (Lily Collins). The hook: he has tinnitus and relies on music to drown out the constant ringing in his ears. Music has always played an important role in Wright’s films — think the “Don’t Stop Me Now” scene from Shaun of the Dead — and he said there will be “about 35 songs” in Baby Driver, ranging “from very famous to more obscure.” Predicting the songs — and salivating at how great Edgar Wright’s car chases are going to be — is a lot more fun than guessing what happened with Ant-Man. Your loss, Marvel.
October 6: Blade Runner 2049 and Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Why you should be excited: Two movies, two unlikely sequels. Blade Runner came out 35 years ago, and 2015’s Kingsman: The Secret Service was a surprise hit (with some killer action scenes), earning over $400 million on an under-$90 million budget. Little is known about Blade Runner 2049, other than it’s directed by Arrival‘s Denis Villeneuve and stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, who’s rumored to have signed up so he could pull a Han Solo on Rick Deckard. The America-bound Kingsman: The Golden Circle doesn’t have that problem — [SPOILER] already died in the first film. Maybe [SPOILER]’s family can lend his umbrella to Rick? It’s never not raining in Blade Runner.
October 13: Logan Lucky
Why you should be excited: Say hello to your favorite movie of the year. Logan Lucky re-teams Magic Mike director Steven Soderbergh with Channing Tatum, who pulls off a “hillbilly heist” with his brother (Adam Driver) during a NASCAR race. There’s nothing to not like about that sentence, or the rest of the cast: Daniel Craig, Hilary Swank, Riley Keough, Katherine Waterston, Sebastian Stan, and Seth MacFarlane. Katherine Heigl is also along for the ride, and if anyone can coax a winning performance out of the Zyzzyx Road star, it’s Soderbergh (working from a script from newcomer Rebecca Blunt).
Do hillbillies like “Pony”? Trick question: everyone likes “Pony.”
October 27: God Particle
Why you should be excited: J.J. Abrams is done with reboots and remakes, but he’s sticking with the Cloverfield anthology series. God Particle — the third loosely connected film in the franchise, after Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane — is about “a team of astronauts who make a ‘shocking discovery’ and end up fighting for survival in what is described as an altered reality.” Gone are Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman; they’ve been replaced with Daniel Brühl, David Oyelowo, and, presumably, a secret monster in the third act.
November 3: Thor: Ragnarok
Why you should be excited: If there’s one movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe you haven’t seen, it’s probably Thor: The Dark World, which scrapped together an anonymous $645 million at the box office. You have no excuse to skip out on Thor: Ragnarok, though, which pairs the Norse god with the Hulk and Doctor Strange. The movie is directed by Taika Waititi, who also helmed What We Do in the Shadows and last year’s overlooked Hunt for the Wilderpeople. That, on top of Jeff Goldblum as Grandmaster and the “most adventurous” and “out there” promise, makes Thor: Ragnarok a must-see.
November 10: Red Sparrow
Why you should be excited: Jennifer Lawrence has been attached to a sequel-spawning franchise film since 2011, when she starred in X-Men: First Class. Eventually, though, covering yourself in blue paint — or firing arrows — gets tiring, so, for now, she’s finished playing Mystique and Katniss.
She’s not done working with a Hunger Games director, though.
Lawrence will re-team with Frances Lawrence (Catching Fire, Mockingjay) for Red Sparrow, which, like Jason Matthews’ novel of the same name, follows a “young Russian intelligence officer [who’s] assigned to seduce a first-tour CIA agent who handles the CIA’s most sensitive penetration of Russian intelligence. The two young officers collide in a charged atmosphere of trade-craft, deception, and inevitably forbidden passion that threatens not just their lives but of others as well.” J-Law plays one officer, Joel Edgerton the other. Red Sparrow certainly has an interesting, potentially thrilling premise — maybe this time the execution will be good, too.
November 17: Justice League
Why you should be excited: It’s Batman plus Superman plus Wonder Woman plus The Flash plus Aquaman plus Cyborg plus Deathstroke plus Mera plus Jeremy Irons’ sarcastic Alfred — even if we were burned by Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (and every Zack Snyder movie since… 300?), it’s still most of the DC Comics characters you can think of in one movie. There’s a fine line between excitement and morbid curiosity. Justice League is walking it.
November 22: Coco
Why you should be excited: Lee Unkrich has worked on nearly every Pixar movie since Toy Story, and directed some of the animation studio’s finest achievements, including Toy Story 2 and Finding Nemo. But his next project, Pixar’s only non-sequel until 2020, is Unkrich’s trickiest assignment yet.
Coco follows Miguel, a 12-year-old Mexican boy who loves music even though it’s banned from his strict family. Of course, that only makes him want to surround himself with music even more. But when he “borrows” a guitar from the grave of his favorite singer, Ernesto de la Cruz, Miguel is transported into the Land of the Dead on Dia de Muertos. “The day John Lasseter gave the thumbs up for this movie,” Unkrich said, “I immediately felt this huge weight drop onto my shoulders because I knew that we were doing something different than we had ever made at the studio and that for the first time, we were going to have this enormous responsibility to do right by this culture and not lapse into stereotype or cliché.” Thankfully, there won’t be any whitewashing controversies here: there’s an all-Latino cast, and animators were sent to Mexico for authenticity. And best of all, it’s not Cars 3.
December 15: Star Wars: Episode VIII
Why you should be excited: It’s Star Wars. C’mon.
December 22: Downsizing
Why you should be excited: Alexander Payne’s last two movies, The Descendants and Nebraska, were Oscar-nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, so Paramount clearly has big hope for Downsizing. Little is known about the bonkers-sounding film, other than the basic premise: It’s “the story of a man and his wife who, deciding that their lives have gotten out of hand, voluntarily have themselves shrunk down. Unfortunately for the man, his wife backs out at the last minute.” The husband and wife are played by Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig, who filled in when Reese Witherspoon dropped out, and while an Election reunion would have been nice, it’s hard not to be curious about Downsizing, especially with a plum pre-Christmas release date.
It’s an encouraging way to end a promising year at the cinema.
