Amid a teasing year for cinema in 2023, overshadowed by setbacks like the Hollywood labor strikes and unexpected industry shifts, the promise of 2024 emerges as a beacon of hope, with an impressive lineup of 13 anticipated blockbusters helmed by renowned auteurs.
This movie is a musical – specifically, an adaptation of the 2018 Broadway production. With a book by the original film's screenwriter, Tina Fey, music by (her husband) Jeff Richmond and lyrics by Nell Benjamin, the stage show thoughtfully incorporated social media but still kept the best parts of the 2004 movie (the iconic "Halloween in girl world" scene became a whole song about sexing up every costume imaginable).
By wisely splitting author Frank Herbert's sprawling 1965 sci-fi novel into two parts, director Denis Villeneuve managed to tame an unruly narrative sandworm that had swallowed up earlier filmmakers like David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky. The result was a visually stunning first installment that wowed audiences and critics alike, earning 10 Oscar nominations, including for best picture. Now we'll find out if Villeneuve can stick the landing. Returning to the forbidding desert planet Arrakis, the epic conclusion will see Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) seek to fulfill his messianic destiny as his Bene Gesserit-honed mental powers grow and his bond with Chani (Zendaya) and her fellow Fremen deepens, drawing them into battle with the evil Harkonnens and the galactic emperor. Joining the already stacked cast are Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Christopher Walken as Emperor Shaddam IV, and Lea Seydoux as the Bene Gesserit Lady Margot.
When we last saw Bong Joon Ho, he was holding the three Oscars he accepted for "Parasite," the best movie to win best picture since Francis Ford Coppola's "Godfather" films. Even with the way the pandemic warped our perception of time, that's a long gap between movies. Thankfully, Bong will be back in theaters sometime this year with "Mickey 17," an adaptation of Edward Ashton's sci-fi novel about a disposable employee who is sent to colonize an ice world, goes missing and is presumed dead, is replaced by a clone – not a good outcome for our human hero. Robert Pattinson stars with Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo rounding out the cast.
Originally slated to premiere at last year's Venice Film Festival ahead of a September theatrical release, "Challengers" was among the titles delayed by Hollywood's hot labor summer, presumably because Amazon MGM Studios would be daft not to have stars Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O'Connor on the press circuit for this one.
Eight years after the adrenaline-fueled spectacle of "Mad Max: Fury Road" and a mind-boggling 45 years after the original "Mad Max" film, director George Miller, at age 78, returns with the fifth installment in his high-octane post-apocalyptic saga. This time the action centers not on the series' iconic titular antihero but instead on the origin of the indomitable warrior Imperator Furiosa, with Anya Taylor-Joy stepping into the role originated by Charlize Theron in "Fury Road." In the spinoff prequel, the young Furiosa is seized from her family by a marauding Biker Horde led by Chris Hemsworth's Warlord Dementus (among other things, Miller has a knack for character names) and must find her way back home through the Wasteland.
Ana de Armas as a ballerina assassin hunting down her family's killers in the "John Wick" universe? Say no more. A year after Keanu Reeves seemingly hung up his suit in 2023's "John Wick: Chapter 4," everyone's favorite un-retired hitman will appear in this franchise spinoff directed by Len Wiseman ("Underworld") and written by "John Wick" veteran scribe Shay Hatten. Can "Ballerina" capture the same highly stylized magic as Chad Stahelski's core films? With a timeline-jumping setting reportedly taking place between the third and fourth films, the summer release also brings back familiar faces in Lance Reddick, Ian McShane and Anjelica Huston, promising to at least deepen the Wick lore that fans know and love.
Decades after star turns in "Dances With Wolves," "Open Range" and "Wyatt Earp," Kevin Costner proved in the mega-hit "Yellowstone" that audiences still love to see him in Westerns, riding a horse through the wide open plains. The bad news is that the curtain will come down on "Yellowstone" in 2024. But the better news is that Costner will return to the big screen in an epic western that may outdance his Oscar-winning "Wolves." In fact, "Horizon: An American Saga," which Costner co-wrote, produced and directed, is so big, it's being split in two – the first part hits theaters in June and the second part debuts in August.
The first two were great fun, and apparently being subsumed into the distended viscera of the MCU won't stop "Deadpool and Wolverine" or whatever from being R-rated fun. IRL buddies Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman reprise their iconic roles. Franchise writers Reynolds, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are joined by comics vet Zeb Wells (contributor to the genuinely good "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law") and director Shawn Levy.
Between Joaquin Phoenix's killer dance moves and Lady Gaga's crazy good vocals (she plays Harley Quinn), it's already got some decent musical chops, plus a returning composer, Hildur Gudnadottir, likely to build on her memorably creepy score from the first movie.
We know Hollywood loves a prequel, and this "Wizard of Oz" origin story stars Ariana Grande as the "Good Witch" Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as "Wicked Witch of the West" Elphaba, the latter being a notable casting, despite the fact that "Wicked" has been playing on Broadway for 20 years and counting. After peeping at every leaked photo of the cast – which includes Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Bowen Yang, Jonathan Bailey and, of course, Grande's new beau, Ethan Slater – on that practical, colorful Munchkinland set, this adaptation will be well worth the wait.
A long-cherished dream project for its director, Robert Eggers, this horror remake had to sit tight while the "Witch" filmmaker took on both "The Lighthouse" and "The Northman." Now the path is clear, with Bill Skarsgard playing the monstrous Count Orlok and costar Lily-Rose Depp hoping to get as far away from any stray memories of "The Idol" as possible. F. W. Murnau's silent original – still a spooky watch more than a century later – was all about atmosphere.
British director Steve McQueen is still best known for his now decade-old Oscar-winner "12 Years a Slave," but his recent shift into long-form storytelling has resulted in some of the most radical and exciting historical filmmaking of his career. That streak includes "Small Axe," his remarkable five-film Amazon anthology set in London's West Indian community between the 1960s and '80s, and the just-released "Occupied City," a galvanizing four-and-a-half-hour documentary about Nazi-oppressed Amsterdam. Here's hoping McQueen's impressive streak continues with his upcoming World War II drama, "Blitz," which will mark his first theatrically released narrative feature since 2018's "Widows." Little is known about the project except that it takes place, true to its title, during the German bombing assault on the U.K., and features some terrific actors including Saoirse Ronan and Harris Dickinson.
Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. After decades of trying to make "Megalopolis," an ambitious, sprawling story of philosophy and utopia seemingly hard to distill down to a logline, Francis Ford Coppola has reportedly put more than $100 million of his capital into finally making this dream project a reality. Regardless of what the story is, Coppola has attracted an impressive cast, one that includes Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne, Jason Schwartzman, Talia Shire, Shia LaBeouf and Dustin Hoffman. The 84-year-old Coppola has notoriously made and lost fortunes on his filmmaking before and to see someone of his age and stature still willing to take these kinds of creative and financial risks is thrilling.
Amy Adams has played a princess and a nun, Lynne Cheney and Lois Lane, a barmaid, a blogger and a con artist. She sang with the Muppets, talked with the aliens and read the riot act to Philip Seymour Hoffman. Adams has not, to this point, played a dog, though that will change with "Nightbitch," Marielle Heller's adaptation of the 2021 novel about a frazzled full-time mom who finds herself slowly transforming into, yes, a canine. Heller ("The Diary of a Teenage Girl," "Can You Ever Forgive Me?") seems the perfect choice for a surreal story about a woman escaping monotony and rediscovering her identity by going feral.
