Robert Hamer
Summertime! The season when the big movies IP-dependent franchise tentpoles roll out and keep Hollywood studio executives on the edge of their seats because these behemoths need to gross half-a-billion dollars just to have a shot at breaking even. The next ninety days will see the release of nine sequels, five reboots/remakes (depending on how you want to classify The Fantastic Four: First Steps… more on that in a minute), and one franchise spinoff. Jesus, man, can DOGE make cuts to this stuff, instead?
Two of them are very important blockbusters whose success or failure will shape the future of their respective studios for years to come, so I couldn’t ignore them. But I tried to make room for some original content to preview below…
MATERIALISTS – In Theaters June 13
Directed by Celine Song
Starring Dakota Johnson, with Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal
What is it about? A matchmaker’s lucrative business is complicated when she falls into a love triangle that threatens her clients.
How am I feelin’ about this one? Past Lives was a favorite of many critics and cinephiles when it came out two years ago, so Celine Song’s follow-up to her sleeper hit was guaranteed to be hotly anticipated. I envy those who are chomping at the bit to see how she steals their hearts a second time around, because I have two big reservations that hinder my enthusiasm for Materialists:
The first is probably going to be a little easier for readers to get behind, because I am hardly the only one who saw the trailer and felt it was kind of derivative and low-stakes. They’re not as frequent as they were in the 1990s, but movies about a career-focused woman who Just Doesn’t Have Time For Love until she meets the Man Of Her Dreams never really went away, and usually explode shortly after some advance in women’s rights and representation causes a reactionary backlash and push for a return to Traditional Heteronormative Roles from political elites and whoever happens to be the drivers of American culture. It’s also hard to feel too invested in a gorgeous and successful woman having to choose between two equally gorgeous men to commit to romantically because, oh noes, one of them isn’t as wealthy as she is! But, like… who cares? I’m pretty sure if you asked any heterosexual woman in the United States making enough money to afford her own luxury apartment in New York City if she’d feel comfortable being the breadwinner in a relationship with a dude who looks like Chris-freakin’-Evans, 99% of them would say, “Are you kidding me? If a broke dude as ridiculously good-looking as Chris Evans wanted to date me, I’d volunteer to be his sugar mama!” Oh, but if it doesn’t work out, she can fall back on a rich guy played by heartthrob Pedro Pascal? Oh, the dilemma! How ever will she survive this?!
Okay, now for the less-popular reason for my apprehension: I was a little… underwhelmed, by Past Lives. Okay, before you start yelling at me, I did not hate it. I don’t think it’s an insult to cinema like Emilia Pérez or anything. But after my initial “Well, that was nice” reaction leaving the theater, I could not shake the feeling of having seen something rather overly… navel-gazey, without enough character depth or drama in the actual execution to justify that. The premise seems ripe for an emotionally thorny love triangle, but there’s very little tension applied to it. I also got the strong impression that Nora was the writer-director’s self-insert character, with the two male characters being metaphorical stand-ins for her dueling impulses about her own sense of national identity rather than fully-formed people with their own inner lives, which might explain the lack of specificity in their characterizations. Also, this is a minor point, but you can’t have one of your author characters publish a book titled Boner and never circle back to address that insane background detail.
So I cannot say I’m super-pumped about this one, which is a shame because I’m usually all in on wide release films focused on adults dealing with adult relationships. I hope my instincts are wrong.
28 YEARS LATER – In Theaters June 20
Directed by Danny Boyle
Starring Jodie Comer, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes
What is it about? A group of survivors of the rage virus lives on a small island. When one of the group ventures out of the island on a mission into the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors.
How am I feelin’ about this one? Hang on, weren’t we supposed to get a 28 Months Later? That’s what the progression seemed to imply when 28 Weeks Later was released eighteen years ag-oh, yeah, I suppose it makes sense to just skip to Years after such a dramatic time gap. This also means that Jim, Selena, Hannah, Tammy, and Andy from the last two films will almost certainly not be showing up in this installment. Which I am more than fine with; sequels, especially horror sequels, do not need to be bogged down with continuity or their own internal mythologies to be successful. Oftentimes, those concerns are a burden that drag them down.
Based on the spectacular teaser trailer, it is strongly implied that this will be a more sprawling narrative structure with one protagonist traveling and encountering several small stories happening along a longer journey. Also a good decision — after so many years, I’m more interested in small glimpses of how life post-rage virus would actually look like, as opposed to one story that would seriously run the risk of being yet another “seeming sanctuary turns out to be run by humans even worse than the monsters” (that has been repeated in multiple seasons of the boring-and-mopey-as-hell The Walking Dead series) and “asymptomatic carrier holds the key to a cure or vaccine” (which was also retread in The Last of Us) storylines of the last two movies.
The first film’s helmer Danny Boyle returned to the director’s chair for this one, the first film’s official (and second film’s unofficial) writer Alex Garland has come back for the script to this one, and the first movie’s now-Academy Award-winning star Cillian Murphy has been listed as an executive producer. So we can probably expect some continuity between at least the first movie, some of the second movie, and this third go-around. Speaking of the second one, I guess… Andy’s potential to end the rage virus from the sequel didn’t work out? It’s still a pandemic infecting people and turning them into enraged pseudo-zombies? How does that work?
Oh, never mind. That’s actually pretty realistic.
SUPERMAN – In Theaters July 11
Directed by James Gunn
Starring David Corenswet, with Rachel Brosnahan and Nicholas Hoult
What is it about? Warner Bros. Discovery once again tries to get it right with a cinematic treatment of the most iconic superhero ever created.
How am I feelin’ about this one? There is no 2025 release with higher corporate and cultural stakes attached to it than Superman, formerly titled Superman: Legacy, which is Warner Bros. Discovery’s second attempt to launch a superhero cinematic universe that can compete with the cultural juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first time around resulted in the DC Extended Universe, which stumbled out of the gate with a thematically incoherent and casually violent Superman, faceplanted with one of the most widely (and justifiably) hated superhero movies of the last twenty years, and spent the next few years pretty much stepping on rake after rake with the occasional pop feminist cultural touchstone and gleefully over-the-top B-movie throwback to keep them from reaching the lowest Sony Spider–Spinoff depths of sheer sadness.
That B-movie throwback, The Suicide Squad, was directed by James Gunn, and was not a box office success due to factors outside of its control, but was beloved enough by fans and audiences to convince David Zaslav to flat-out cancel the rest of the DCEU and hand Gunn and his creative partner Peter Safran the keys to the entire DC pantheon of characters to try again on a (semi-)cleared slate. And when you are rebooting the DC Universe on film, you really can’t start with anyone but Superman. Unlike Marvel, the entire DC shared fictional milieu revolves around this one character. So even though the first project under Gunn’s DC umbrella was technically the animated streaming series Creature Commandos, Superman is obviously serving as this new cinematic universe’s grand introduction to mainstream audiences.
I have come to resent the dominance of the superhero in our multiplexes for so long, but I have to admit, a big part of me is rooting for this movie. For one thing, if we are going to continue to center comic book heroes as the most prominent big-budget blockbusters out of Hollywood, I would rather see its future dominated by different superheroes than the ones out of a single comic publishing giant as it has since the Avengers first assembled. Also, I have a soft spot for Superman. He is a symbol of what should be our best selves. He is an American icon. He’s the OG superhero. And yet, our most recognizable caped crusader has been disserved badly in live-action movies for pretty much the entirety of my life. The last two live-action versions of the character we’ve seen were a creepy, emotionless stalker who we later learn was an absentee father and a resentful killing machine who treated Lois Lane as his one tenuous connection to humanity. That sucks. Gunn seems really set on embracing the hopeful, altruistic version of the character. Specifically, he is taking inspiration from how the character was portrayed in All-Star Superman, one of the greatest Superman stories ever written. I would hate to see that take on the character fail at the box office.
But I do have one big reservation about this — the concerningly large number of supporting characters who will be making an appearance in this film. In the teaser trailer alone, I caught glimpses of Mr. Terrific, Metamorpho, Guy Gardner, Kelex, and Hawkgirl. Supergirl and The Engineer are also expected to be introduced in this movie, along with new versions of Eve Teschmacher, Jimmy Olsen, and Maxwell Lord. In a movie ostensibly about Superman. I fear this runs a serious risk of just being a bunch of setups for future DC franchise installments instead of a good standalone popcorn spectacle.
But I’m not immune to fanboyish excitement for beloved characters making their debut on the big screen. There is one I’m absolutely psyched to see in live-action…
THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS – In Theaters July 25
Directed by Matt Shakman
Starring Pedro Pascal, with Vanessa Kirby and Joseph Quinn
What is it about? On a 1960s-inspired retro-futuristic Earth, the Fantastic Four must protect their world from the planet-devouring cosmic being Galactus and his herald, the Silver Surfer.
How am I feelin’ about this one? Marvel knows they’re vulnerable to being overtaken by DC at the movies for the first time in decades. Indeed, how could they not? James Gunn used to work for them, and under their employment, was responsible for arguably the most consistent series within their megafranchise in terms of quality and it was with characters most people had never heard of, before. He finished that off with a mostly rock-solid conclusion in a cinematic universe infamous for not letting characters go right after knocking it out of the park in ridiculously awesome fashion with The Suicide Squad. What will he be capable of writing and directing a cultural icon superhero that everyone has heard of?
And what better time for mainstream audiences to jump ship to DC from Marvel than now? It seems like they’ve been more or less moving on since Avengers: Endgame. Eternals turned off critics after years of coasting on (in my opinion) overly generous reviews from them, The Marvels bombed, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was a mess that didn’t live up to its knockout predecessor, and Captain America: Brave New World was so disliked that even self-described Marvel fan Joey couldn’t find many nice things to say about it.
If you’re a moviegoer, this isn’t that big a deal. In fact, it’s perfectly healthy to see something that enjoyed mass popularity in a previous generation run out of steam. That’s just how culture works. But if you’re a studio executive at Disney, you are facing a five-alarm fire. How do you right this ship to keep your job in the corner office? Which popular characters can you introduce into your cinematic universe in a way that feels novel to potential audiences? Well, why not the Fantastic Four? They’re not as central to Marvel as Superman is to DC, but they are iconic and a crucial part of their history, being the first superhero comic from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and basically ushered in the ascendance of Marvel as a serious comic book publisher. Like Superman, they’ve also had a rough go of it in live action and are pretty overtly being advertised as returning to their more classical appeal this time around. I mean that literally, by the way — this is going to be set in the 1960s…themed aesthetic future. I am a little concerned that such an approach will pander to our destructive reactionary fantasies pining away for an idealized past that never really existed, but at least this is something visually distinct from what Marvel has been serving us for the last seventeen years.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps doesn’t carry quite the make-or-break stakes that Superman does, but it is carrying quite a load on its shoulders, ushering in “Phase Six” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and supposedly taking place in a setting entirely removed from the interconnected “main” universe occupied by Captain America, Ant-Man, et al. This “decluttering” could be a breath of fresh air and bring back the interpersonal dynamics that made those first few Marvel movies fun to watch.
CAUGHT STEALING – In Theaters August 29
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Starring Austin Butler, with Zoë Kravitz and Regina King
What is it about? A former baseball player finds himself immersed in criminality in New York in the 1990s.
How am I feelin’ about this one? To keep an open mind for Caught Stealing, I have been reminding myself of The Ladykillers. Bear with me on this. See, I hated Darren Aronofsky’s last movie with a white-hot passion. Literally, I had a hard time physically staying in the theater getting through a movie as vile – cinematically, narratively, and morally – as The Whale. But here’s the thing: I also hated The Ladykillers, my least-favorite film from the Coen Brothers. It is one of the only movies they have ever written and directed that forces me to concede that perhaps the pair’s detractors might have some decent points against them from time to time. It was a shrill, tedious, repetitive farce with almost no funny scenes and an undercurrent of condescending “them folksy blacks have home-spun, down-to-earth morality with their simple ways that we should heed more!” racism.
Three years after that faceplant, Joel and Ethan Coen would commence a dominant run of knockout movies that would make any filmmaker jealous, including one of the best-aged Best Picture winners of the 21st century, one of their funniest comedies (hot take: I laughed way more often at Burn After Reading than I did The Big Lebowski), one of the best movies about the Jewish-American experience, and a musical dramedy so good that even longtime Coen skeptic Joey Magidson declared it a masterpiece. All after releasing one of their worst movies. I hope, after suffering through The Whale, I can look forward to a similar post-nadir upshot of excellent directorial efforts from Aronofsky. Then again, the fact that it won an Oscar probably means its release was not a humbling experience motivating him to do better…
But what even is Caught Stealing? Adapted from a popular novel, this is going to be Aronofsky’s first crime thriller since Requiem for a Dream and follows a baseball player who falls into the criminal underworld. I have not read the book, but reviews have noted its cast of odd and colorful characters protagonist Hank Thompson runs into throughout his squalid odyssey, which could mean juicy supporting roles for the likes of Zoë Kravitz, Regina King, a mohawk’ed Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, and Vincent D’Onofrio to chew into. The premise also lends itself to Aronofsky chewing into his own hyperactive directorial impulses that are sometimes exciting, sometimes exasperating, but almost never boring to watch.
Man, I really hope his last movie was just a fluke…
THE TOXIC AVENGER – In Theaters August 29
Directed by Macon Blair
Starring Peter Dinklage, with Jacob Tremblay and Taylour Paige
What is it about? After a freak accident, an ordinary janitor transforms into a mutant vigilante.
How am I feelin’ about this one? Before I go into this movie’s fraught path to theaters, I need to be petty for a moment. See, back when Joey and I worked for the now-defunct Awards Circuit, we used to participate in a little collective annual series from Mark Johnson ranking the top ten “breakout performers” of the year. We would be invited to write about an actor or actress who had a big year and write about why we think this year is a herald of a bright future for them. In 2014, I wanted to write about Macon Blair, who impressed the hell out of me in Blue Ruin and I predicted would go on to have a steady career as a supporting actor and indie stalwart, not dissimilar to Steve Buscemi or Eddie Marsan. One of my colleagues strongly disagreed, and begged Mark to overrule me and make me write about someone else because Blair, in his mind, was not going to have much of a career after his performance as a traumatized vagrant on a misguided quest for revenge. His choice for the breakout performer of 2014? Ellar Coltrane from Boyhood. He later went on to speculate about the potential Marvel or Star Wars characters Coltrane would play as a future matinée idol (for his part, Mark ultimately ended up ranking Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the breakout performer of 2014; a good choice, in my opinion).
A decade later, all I can say to that former colleague of mine who was so incensed at me spotlighting a great talent without conventional movie star looks is: Ha. Ha ha. Ha. I was right. You were wrong. Macon Blair went on to be the exact kind of steady supporting player I predicted he would be, appearing in small-but-critical roles in well-regarded films (including in one Best Picture winner!) and even making a name for himself as a director and producer of multiple projects. Excuse me while I spike a football and do an endzone dance real quick…
Okay, enough gloating. What do we make of Macon Blair’s sophomore directorial project, reintroducing the B-movie antihero the Toxic Avenger to a new generation of moviegoers? Well, for one thing, it’s kind of a miracle that this thing is even coming to theaters at all. After eight years in development hell, where the project initially started off as a family-friendly PG-13 superhero yarn and was supposed to star Arnold Schwarzenegger, the IP eventually landed where it should have been with the whole time: Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, the co-founders of infamous trashy indie movie studio Troma Entertainment. Kaufman claims that they hired Blair to shepherd this into being because…
“[He] knows Troma better than I do. He’s seen everything. He’s seen the cartoon, he’s seen the Halloween special, he’s seen everything. And he loves our movies… I’ve read the script and it’s better than the original and I leave it to him.”
High praise!
So… happy ending, right? Not yet. The Toxic Avenger was completed two years ago but was declared “unreleasable” because no mainstream distributor wanted to touch its reportedly graphic, over-the-top violence with a twenty-foot pole. One of the producers expressed worry that it could become lost media. But luckily, Cineverse not only stepped up to distribute, but even went out of their way to secure a theatrical release in August. That this sat on the shelf for two whole years can only add to its lurid appeal to grindhouse cinephiles.
So what do you think, readers? Do you think you’ll be able to stomach the extreme content of The Toxic Avenger? Will James Gunn make us believe a man can fly again? Just how screwed would we be if a rage virus broke out in the real world today? Let us know in the comments.
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