Summer 2013 - What're you psyched to see?

[Reverend Jax]

So it's mid-April and we are on the cusp of the Summer movie season. What're you psyched to see? I've populated the poll options with movies identified as nationwide, major-studio releases, in chronological order of their US release dates. Here's the run down of the 40 movies in the poll, spoiler tagged to compress it, not because of any actual spoilers:

 

 

 

May 3rd

 

 

Third in the series. Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce join the cast.

 

May 10th

 

 

Baz Luhrmann's unique vision of the F Scott Fitzgerald classic.

 

 

A Meet the Parents style comedy from Tyler Perry's film-making empire. Stars Kerry Washington and Craig Robinson.

 

May 17th

 

 

Second film in the JJ Abrams sequel/prequel/reboot/alternate timeline series, the twelfth film overall. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the villain.

 

May 24th

 

 

Like most CGI features nowadays, it has a star-studded cast, but I suspect this movie will flop so hard, it will make Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole and Rise of the Guardians look like smash hits by comparison. But it will be the only family-friendly movie out when it's released, so I may be way off.

 

 

The 6th in the series, The Rock and Michelle Rodriguez return. MMA fighter Gina Carano joins the cast. Fast 7 is already in the works for 2015.

 

 

The third and last installment in the series.

 

May 31th

 

 

A star-studded cast in a magicians-as-world-class-thieves caper/thriller.

 

 

A horror film about a Utopian future where everything is great because one night a year, "all crime is legal."

 

June 7th

 

 

The marketing is downplaying it, but this is M Night Shyamalan's follow-up to The Last Airbender. I even saw a 5-minute behind-the-scenes thing they play before the trailers that didn't show his face or say his name. Shyamalan didn't write this, so assuming he didn't have final cut and didn't have much creative control and had producers keeping him on a short leash, it is conceivable that this could be watchable.

 

 

Two middle-aged men who just got fired as wristwatch salesmen, somehow get internships at Google, where they are wildly out of place. Crazy hijinks ensue.

 

June 12th

 

 

A bunch of young actors (let's call them The Apatow Pack) play fictionalized versions of themselves during the apocalypse. The trailers and commercials look really funny actually.

 

June 14th

 

 

DC and Warner Brothers are hoping to get into Marvel's game and have a hit in the vein of The Dark Knight series, which will set the stage for the Justice League movie they are already moving forward with for 2015. A flop here would really complicate those plans.

 

June 21st

 

 

A prequel to the beloved 2001 Monsters, Inc. Pixar followed up its most acclaimed film ever (Toy Story 3) with a big disappointment (Cars 2) and then a regular-sized disappointment (Brave). Hopefully this will signal a return to form? It is however only one of two monster movies to be released this weekend...

 

 

Brad Pitt stars in a movie that appears to have very little in common with the book on which it is purportedly based. Initially screening were very negative and lead to a major rewrite and several weeks of re-shoots. Was Paramount able to polish that turd?

 

June 28th

 

 

With a poster like that, you know the studio has confidence in it. Though, considering it was moved from Spring to Summer, maybe they do. A mismatched cop comedy with...and here's the twist...two LADY cops!

 

 

There have been several times in Hollywood when two studios have basically the same idea for a movie to come out around the same time. There's Armageddon/Deep Impact, The Illusionist/The Prestige, A Bug's Life/Antz, Dante's Peak/Volcano, Tombstone/Wyatt Earp, etc. Sometimes they are only superficially similar (like with Paul Blart: Mall cop and Observe and Report), sometimes they are different genres (Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman). White House Down has basically the same plot as Olympus Has Fallen, which was rushed to theaters to beat White House Down, and it also beat critical and commercial expectations. Compound on top of that that the GI Joe sequel also took on a similar story, White House Down might have trouble selling tickets in a crowded summer schedule.

 

July 3rd

 

 

The sequel to Illumination Entertainment's debut movie and by far their biggest box office hit. A Minions spin-off movie is already set for release for Holiday 2014.

 

 

The Pirates of the Carribean team hopes to create a franchise as successful as Pirates. This won't be a John Carter sized flop for Disney, but I would be really surprised if this was successful enough to have Disney make a sequel (the measure of success nowadays with tentpole properties like this).

 

July 5th

 

 

If not for The Heat, this wold be the laziest poster of the summer. It's about a non-sexual friendship between a 14-year old boy and an adult man who runs a water park.

 

July 12th

 

 

After a series of box office flops the past few years (Jack and Jill, That's My Boy), Adam Sandler needs a hit, lest he go the way of Pauly Shore, so he is will headline what is, from what I can figure, his first ever sequel. Rob Schneider is undoubtably very grateful.

 

 

Pacific Rim is a big budget summer action movie that's not a sequel or a reboot or a remake nor is it adapted from a comic or a book or a video game or a TV show or a stage play or a radio serial or board game or a theme park ride or a sugary cereal mascot (you watch, that's coming next). It's just an original concept. As original as a ragtag team of giant, human-piloted, bipedal robots fighting giant monsters can be. Directed by the great Guillermo del Toro, who joins the elite higher crust of directors Hollywood will trust to make an original big budget summer movie.

 

July 17th

 

 

Dreamworks cranks these CGI family movies our at a rate of about 3 a year, and the fact is that it is not easy telling which will be good ones and which will be the stinkers, but if I had to bet, I'd bet this will fall into the latter column.

 

July 19th

 

 

Originally titled Imogene, Girl Most Likely is scheduled to come out nationwide this weekend, against 3 other nationwide releases, but under this new name, it does not have an official poster, official trailer or official website. It stars Annette Bening, Kristen Wiig, Natasha Lyonne, Darren Criss and Matt Dillon. It played at the Toronto Film Festival to mixed reviews.

 

 

Also without an official poster, trailer or website, this is an adaption of the Dark Horse comic of the same name. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Bacon and Mary Louise Parker, it's about afterlife cops charged with keeping the unruly dead from entering the world of the living.

 

 

The original cast reunited for a sequel.

 

 

Horror movie "based on a true story."

 

July 26th

 

 

Already this year's winner for the award honoring the highest degree of variation in the quality of official posters released (Exhibit A, Exhibit B). Fox let everyone except Nick down with the last Wolvy flick, but exceeded everyone's low expectations with First Class, so who the fuck knows how this'll turn out. Potentially the biggest wild card of the summer.

 

July 31st

 

 

If loved were dragged by children to the first Smurfs movie, you'll be happy to know there's a probably be dragged to the crappy sequel coming out this summer!

 

August 2nd

 

 

What can I say that this poster does not?

 

 

How this got passed the official committee that decides whether a movie will be direct-to-DVD release rather than a theatrical release, I will never know, but Pancho is surely grateful that it did.

 

August 7th

 

 

Another brilliant poster, at least this one has an official stylized typeface. Anyway, I never saw the original, but the trailer to this one looks a hundred times better than the trailer to the first one.

 

August 9th

 

 

Production on this began back when Pixar and Disney looked like they were parting ways, and out of pure spite, Disney threatened to make shitty direct-to-video sequels of all of the Pixar movies they owned the rights to. Eventually, Michael Eisner was booted out of Disney (partially for the way he royally fucked up their relationship with Pixar), and Disney outright bought Pixar. Somehow, this project somehow went through production, and was recently moved from their direct-to-video line up to a theatrical release. Even though it's a Cars spin-off, it's not a Pixar release.

 

 

There are several post-apocalypic, future dyspotian sci-fi movies with big names this summer (Oblivion, After Earth), but this one with Matt Damon from the director of District 9 looks like it will be the best. Hopefully audiences won't be fatigued of this genre, with World War Z and Pacific Rim kind of falling into the same end-of-the-world vibe.

 

We're The Millers is also slated for this weekend, and it also does not have an official poster, trailer or website. It's a comedy starring Jennifer Aniston, Ed Helms and Jason Sudekis about a pot-dealer who creates a fake family to move a big shipment of pot from Mexico.

 

August 16th

 

 

The Kick-Ass 2 comic was widely panned, but this movie is also based off the Hit-Girl spin-off solo book, and that was much better received, and the trailers to this look pretty fun.

 

Paranoia has no official poster, trailer or website. It stars Liam Hemsworth, Lucas Till, Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman. It's a corporate espionage triller.

 

 

An R-rated high school comedy with Aubrey Plaza, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Donald Glover and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

 

August 23rd

 

 

When Harry Potter and the Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone and The Fellowship of the Ring made about a billion dollars each worldwide in 2001 (back before 2 or 3 movies made that much every year), studios decided to buy up the rights to any available young adult's fantasy book series. Disney had some success with The Lion, the Witch and the Wordrobe, but the subsequent Narnia films were disappointing. Other studios floundered with Eragon, Percy Jackson, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and The Golden Compass. But Twilight and The Hunger Games both blew up, so studios are going to continued making these movie in hopes that they hit the jackpot with the next big young adult fantasy franchise. And this is the lastest entry in that contest.

 

 

FINALLY! The final chapter in Edgar Wright's Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy (preceded by Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). I have high hope for this.

 

 

A horror movie. I don't really have anything else to add.

 

 

 

Besides which ones you plan on seeing, I'm also curious as to

 

1) Which movie you think will be the best movie of the summer?

2) Which you think will be the most successful?

3) Which one to you think is going to be the biggest surprise?

Edited April 14, 2013 by Reverend Jax

[Keth]

I should be able to click Pacific Rim more than once

[Reverend Jax]

The other two people who voted aren't interested in The World's End? For shame!

 

As for my 3 questions.

 

1) Which movie you think will be the best movie of the summer?

2) Which you think will be the most successful?

3) Which one to you think is going to be the biggest surprise?

1) I think Star Trek into Darkness may be the summer, but I'm hoping Monsters University is.

2) I can't see any of these movie out-grossing Iron Man.

3) Evidently The World's End, cause I'm the only one anticipating it.

[Keth]

I really wanna see a trailer first, but I have no doubt that Worlds End will be awesome. As for what I picked, those are the ones Im definitely planning on seeing in theaters.

[Iambaytor]

I honestly forgot what it was until you mentioned it. I missed Elysium on there, too.

[Reverend Jax]

I honestly forgot what it was until you mentioned it. I missed Elysium on there, too.

I just realized I had the second set of movies as single choice instead of multiple choice. Fixed now.

[the division of joy]

Irksome, that. Given I've already voted.

[The NZA]

so many downloads

 

is Lone Ranger looking good? havent even watched a trailer yet

 

ps jax your 2nd question wouldn't let me post until i voted (for tyler perry)

[Keth]

I think I voted for that one. I kinda half assed my voting there. The more I see of it though the cooler its looking despite Johnny Deppache.

[Mr. Hakujin]

So it's mid-April and we are on the cusp of the Summer movie season. What're you psyched to see?. . .

 

Ah, damn. You beat me to making this thread Jax! I actually started compiling a list earlier in the week but forgot about it. My subscription to EW lapsed back in December and I haven't picked it back up, so I missed out on their great summer preview issue. As a result, there are way too many films on that list I'm unfamiliar with.

 

It looks to be another great summer. There are a lot of films I'm curious and hopeful but not confident about though. Wolverine, Pacific Rim, World War Z, Hangover 3, Reds 2, Elysium, After Earth, Oblivion, Man of Steel and Iron Man 3 all have potential to be really good flicks but I'm really trying to temper expectations for those. Star Trek is the only one I've really let myself get hyped up about at the moment. MOS & IM3 I'm expecting to be good, as well, but again, trying to keep the hype in check so as to have a better experience.

 

1) Which movie you think will be the best movie of the summer?

2) Which you think will be the most successful?

3) Which one to you think is going to be the biggest surprise?

 

1.) Star Trek In To Darkness. This is the only film I'm going in to expecting to be an "A to A+" film.

2.) This is a tough one. I don't think it's a guaranteed win for IM3 as you predict. Avengers was huge, but there are a lot of dark horses this summer that could usurp it. I'd put IM3, MOS, and Despicable Me 2 as the top 3 candidates for top grossers for the summer.

3.) Peeples. I've never watched a Tyler Perry movie, but after seeing the trailer I plan on actually seeing this one--although not likely in the theater. If I can finish it the whole way through I'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Reverend Jax]

1.) Star Trek In To Darkness. This is the only film I'm going in to expecting to be an "A to A+" film.

2.) This is a tough one. I don't think it's a guaranteed win for IM3 as you predict. Avengers was huge, but there are a lot of dark horses this summer that could usurp it. I'd put IM3, MOS, and Despicable Me 2 as the top 3 candidates for top grossers for the summer.

3.) Peeples. I've never watched a Tyler Perry movie, but after seeing the trailer I plan on actually seeing this one--although not likely in the theater. If I can finish it the whole way through I'll be pleasantly surprised.

1) I'm going in expecting a great film with Star Trek, Monsters U, and The World's End.

2) I was looking at the performance of the first two Iron Man movies for reference just now. Domestically, they kicked ass at the box office. They were they were the 2nd and then 3rrd highest grossing films of their respective years, with the first one being beat out by The Dark Knight and the second by Toy Story 3 and Alice in Wonderland. But worldwide, they were 8th and 7th respectively. I think the Avengers could make a big difference for Iron Man internationally, not to mention the fact that due to the deals Marvel has struck with China, it could pull in a lot for this installment in the fast growing Chinese market. As for your other candidates for possible top earner, don't underestimate Monsters University. The first Monsters movie made more money with 2001 ticket prices than Despicable Me did with 2010 3D ticket prices. Pixar released a billion+ dollar grossing movie three years ago, they could do it again.

3) Well, I haven't seen the trailer, but Craig Robinson is really fucking funny.

[Mr. Hakujin]

Personally, I didn't care for the first Despicable Me film, but I'm going on a hunch it will out-sell Monsters U. Don't get me wrong, I'll see mU in the theater b/c it's Pixar, but DM has already got a strong buzz going. It's a summer release months away and I've got middle school students talking about it, and the previews have gotten big laughs in the theater. People just really seem to dig those minions.

 

And like I wrote, IMS is a safe bet for top 3 and maybe even #1, but I think there are a lot of potential contenders this year.

[alive she cried]

The Kick-Ass 2 comic was widely panned,

 

Really? I enjoyed it. It was no Watchmen or Maus, but it was definitely fun. I'm looking forward to it and it's one of the few movies I'll probably go to the cinema for this year.

 

1) Which movie you think will be the best movie of the summer?

2) Which you think will be the most successful?

3) Which one to you think is going to be the biggest surprise?

 

1) Before the trailer, I would've said The Wolverine. I still think it'll be good but not as good as I had initially hoped. So now I'm leaning towards Star Trek, although I think Man Of Steel will give it a run for it's money.

 

2) Either Iron Man 3 or Man Of Steel. But I'd never write off Pixar, so I'd give Monsters University an outside chance.

 

3) Smurfs 2 will be the Godfather 3 we all wanted.

 

The films that I want to see are Iron Man 3, Man Of Steel, Star Trek: Into The Darkness, The Wolverine, Kick-Ass 2 and Monsters University (I c an't remember if I voted for that or not).

[Reverend Jax]

The films that I want to see are Iron Man 3, Man Of Steel, Star Trek: Into The Darkness, The Wolverine, Kick-Ass 2 and Monsters University (I c an't remember if I voted for that or not).

You're not interested in The World's End either?

[alive she cried]

Yeah, I don't know. I really think you had to be American and a Hondonian, to truly get Shaun of the Dead. I know I get it on every level I (and probably Simon Pegg) can think of, but it seems to have taken off in this massive way for ye that i just don't understand. Don't get me wrong I really liked, it was a lot of fun and very funny, but I don't think it was as good as ye say, 7 maybe 8/10. The love for Shaun of the Dead was actually the thing that shocked me most when I joined Hondo's, Hot Costners and fake cancer were one thing, but this was a whole new level. Hot Fuzz, I've had on dvd for a few years now and still haven't got round to seeing it, it looks...fine, but I've a lot of films on my list before that. I am a huge Spaced fan though, for me that's Pegg at his best.

[Thrizzle]

I'll jump on that bandwagon. Spaced > everything else Simon Pegg has ever done.

[Iambaytor]

It's like I don't even know you people