While movie theaters struggle with the question of how to get audiences to fork over $10 a ticket, Hollywood rolls on with another year of big budget, CG heavy spectaculars that’ll we’ll all have 24 hours to see before the spoilers start littering up our social media feeds. The year ahead looks like it could be particularly overwhelming, but in a good way. To give you yet another reason to be excited about the death of 2017, here’s a look at what’s coming that has actual trailers at this point, which is why you won’t find Deadpool 2 and The Incredible 2 on this list. Also, there’s like, literally no way they’ll try and release Solo: A Star Wars Story on May 25, right? I mean, they didn’t even have a trailer ready for The Last Jedi.
February 9 — Fifty Shades Freed
I’ve neither read the books the films are based on, nor have I watched the first two films in the series — not even ironically — so while I have plenty of questions about the thematic content of this trailer, the thing that stands out most to me is just how bad this movie looks. I’m told these movies have made money; is it because they didn’t hire a cinematographer to make them look decent? It’s not quite soap opera level, but the whole thing looks flat and lifeless. Maybe it’ll look better in ten years when they remake the series.
February 16 – Black Panther
If we’re talking trailers alone, this is my most anticipated movie of the year, even more than Infinity War. Marvel has a formula for the movies of its cinematic universe, but more and more they’re making the right moves to bring in directors with extremely interesting creative visions to elevate these films beyond the lazy misfires of Iron Man 2 and Thor 2. Whatever Ryan Coogler did after Creed was going to be worth a watch, and Black Panther looks like it’ll be a knockout.
March 9 – A Wrinkle In Time
Listen, I’m like 95 percent certain that A Wrinkle In Time is going to be great, I just hope some of the CG gets ironed out in the meantime because that shot of Mindy Kaling running with whatever those digital creations are looks ridiculous on the big screen.
March 30 – Ready Player One
I’m probably alone on an island on this one, but I think Ready Player One looks awful. Sure, it’s pretty enough and that shot that swings by the hero’s eyeball as it goes into his goggles is really great, but these trailers have been so poorly edited that I can’t really tell you a damn thing about The Oasis other than that the Iron Giant is there.
May 4 – Avengers: Infinity War
Unsurprisingly, this is the most viewed trailer of all time. And I get it, because there are some amazing moments in this: Spidey sense, Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet, Vision getting wrecked, “Get this man a shield” and so on. While I’m glad Marvel is going all in on the Black Panther corner of the MCU, I’m a little bummed this is all leading to yet another Lord of the Rings style battle. At least people have finally come around on The Avengers theme.
June 8 – Ocean’s 8
I’m rather excited to return to the Ocean’s universe. There’s no denying that they’ve cast the hell out of this one, which means it should be a joy to watch them effortlessly pull off their con. Looking forward to people arguing it’s a film full of Mary Sue’s even though that’s all the original films were.
June 22 – Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
I’m genuinely curious what the action climax of the film is going to be if the volcano stampede is what they’re showing off in the trailer. I didn’t think that Jurassic World was bad, but it didn’t quite work for me, but the series has enough goodwill that I’m willing to give it another spin. Good lord, Chris Pratt is looking at a big two months.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2018.
