More than two years since filming and it was well worth the wait. Stranger Thingsat last fulfilled its mash-up pop culture promise in its fourth season. Hidden inside a mix of a B-movie style homage to low-budget horror and Steven Spielberg movies of the E.T. and Goonies vintage, the story finally came full circle in nine big hours over seven episodes. What do you get when you take 1980s pop culture, a haunted house, a superman lab, more Upside Down, more D&D, not-rabid mynocks, a monster to rival Freddy Kruger, and a huge cast of characters you’ve grown to love (and watch grow up)? The best season of one of the streaming era’s best series.
It’s been a long road, getting from there to here–that is, getting from Stranger Things′ third season to a final trailer and a fourth season beginning a long six weeks from now. It may not seem like it, but it’s been more than two years since we first saw a glimpse at what lies ahead on Stranger Things. At last the breakout hit retro-sci-fi-horror series finally has a full trailer and a coming go-live date for part of the next season.
Dungeons & Dragons fans may notice the new oogy threat to be Vecna, an undead sorcerer last seen in your weekly D&D game or the 5th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide (discussed here). With Freddy Krueger actor Robert Englund joining the show, and the Creepshow vibe in its new creepy baddie, Stranger Things Season 4 looks to lean more on darker monster horror than previous seasons.
At last here’s the trailer for the fourth season of Stranger Things:
In a pre-pandemic world we all would have seen Free Guy in the theater by now and everyone would have been raving about it since August. Now it’s arrived for a wider audience on streaming platform Disney Plus. Is it worth your time? Absolutely. It’s so much better than advertised, you’re certain to be surprised at the layers of storytelling found in this mix of Ready Player One (but 50 times better) Tron: Legacy, Mr. ROBOT, The Truman Show, The LEGO Movie, Elf, Sleeping Beauty, and lots of other great shows. Yes, it’s another video game movie, but it’s bigger. It’s another Ryan Reynolds action movie. But lots more fun.
It may not seem like it, but it’s been an entire year and a half since we last saw a glimpse at what lies ahead on Stranger Things. Check it out here if you need a refresher. It seems a little… strange… but here we are again and the best that Netflix has for fans of its breakout hit retro-sci-fi-horror series is… another teaser. It’s so brief that you probably can’t recall how much of it you’ve seen before, and how much is actually new. So we pulled some images so you don’t have to. In the meantime, you could travel to Kansas City to get your Stranger Things fix later this month for Planet Comicon to meet Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin on the show, and Gabriella Pizzolo, who played Dustin’s friend Suzie, introduced in season 3.
Check out the new teaser for Stranger Things, season 4, below. And the bad news: it’s not arriving until sometime in 2022.
It’s that time of year again, time to take a look forward at what movies should be on your radar for 2021! But wait! Next year’s list sure looks a lot like the the films we previewed last December. The covid pandemic has delayed hundreds of film projects, but some made it through. When you walk back through last year’s list and compare it to movies released after theater lockdowns, you get some insight into how Hollywood thinks. Big movies and movies predicted to be successes were universally held back, while less popular films were released to low box office returns from theaters that remained open, and yet other films went directly to home streaming or related media platforms.
Last year we pulled 85 of the hundreds of films then slated for the 2020 movie calendar. The first two dozen made it to theaters (films like Underwater, Dolittle, and Birds of Prey) before the national shift began on March 11 with news of the NBA reacting to the pandemic by suspending pro basketball–the first national awareness of the scope of the problem. Suddenly we saw Vudu and other home platforms coming to the rescue for our entertainment fix, adding a new Theater at Home option, which captured movies like Anya Taylor-Joy’s Emma, Vin Diesel’s Bloodshot, and the animated Scoob! Disney began an interesting tiered release of Mulan, which for half the year showed a studio doing its best to maximize returns on what would have been a key release in any other year. After another delay The New Mutants made it briefly to theaters followed by home release after three years of getting kicked aside as the last vestiges of the Disney-Fox merger were shaken out. Other films, like Vast of Night, Extraction, The Old Guard, Rebecca,Radioactive, and Fantasy Island safely premiered on Netflix and Amazon Prime, with Chris Hemsworth’s Extraction standing out as the clear popular winner–the entire world needed some new entertainment and after what would only be the first of several months of shelter-at-home, it tentatively filled the void.
So our predictions for the year’s big genre films were flat wrong, every single one except Mulan was delayed to 2021, including Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Black Widow, No Time to Die, a new Fast & Furious, Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, and superhero flicks Venom 2, Eternals, and Morbius. Wonder Woman 1984 is expected to have a theatrical release by year end. Altogether 35 of last year’s 85 movies previewed on our annual list are back again below, plus we found more than 35 new genre films we think will appeal to borg readers.
So what’s left and what’s new?
Grab your calendar and start making your plans–here are the movies you’ll want to see in 2021. Then compare the below list to our 2020 list, and look back to the 2019 list, 2018 list, 2017 list, 2016 list, 2015 list, or 2014 list. Last year we noticed studios moving genre content from the big screen to the small screen via streaming services, and the pandemic only stepped up that migration. Note: Warner Bros. has reported it will issue its 2021 releases simultaneously on HBO Max. Netflix has mostly dramas slated for 2021, but a few genre films are in pre-production, so expect a few surprises throughout the year. Amazon Studios has fewer, most partnerships with Blumhouse Productions.
As we learned well this year, many of these films will have revised release dates, and even get pushed to 2022.
January
Mortal Kombat. Based on the video game. New! Tentative release date: January 15, 2021. HBO Max.
Wrath of Man. Next Jason Statham action flick. New! Tentative release date: January 15, 2021.
The French Dispatch. Wes Anderson and his familiar actors in new quirky film about journalists. New! January 28, 2021.
The Dig. A film about a woman finding archaeological treasures on her land, starring Ralph Fiennes, Lily James, and Carey Mulligan. January 29, 2021. Netflix.
It’s that time of year again, time to take a look forward at what movies should be on your radar for 2020. Are you going to see them all? Heck no. These are the genre films we think borg readers will want to know about to make their own checklists for the coming year–and they are only the films we know about so far. We pulled 85 of the hundreds of films that have been finalized or are in varying stages of final production, slated for next year’s movie calendar.
What looks to top the list for most fanboys and fangirls? Ghostbusters: Afterlife! Scarlett Johannson solo in Black Widow! A new James Bond movie, No Time to Die. Vin Diesel in Bloodshot and a new Fast & Furious. The original Tom Clancy novel series is finally continuing with an adaptation of Without Remorse. Comic book adaptations are in less supply in 2020, but look for Venom 2, Wonder Woman 1984, Eternals, The New Mutants, Morbius, Birds of Prey, The Old Guard, and did we mention Black Widow? Compare the below list to our 2019 list and even the 2018 list, 2017 list, 2016 list, 2015 list, or 2014 list, and your takeaway may be seeing the studios moving genre content from the big screen to the small screen via streaming services.
Do you like sequels? There are far less coming to theaters in 2020 than in 2019, but many more remakes of movies, books, and TV shows are on the way. In fact, with all the blockbusters in 2019, 2020 looks pretty tame as the cinema marquee is concerned. Some films don’t have locked in release dates yet: Amazon Studios and Netflix haven’t revealed dates for the following 2020 releases (those we know you’ll find on the calendar below):
7500, a film about a highjacked airplane, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Amazon Studios)
The Dig,a film about a woman finding archaeological treasures on her land, starring Ralph Fiennes, Lily James, and Carey Mulligan (Netflix)
Horse Girl, Alison Brie stars and directs this story about an awkward girl who fuses her dreams with reality (Netflix)
Jingle Jangle, an animated Christmas story with the voices of Forest Whitaker, Keegan-Michael Key, and Hugh Bonneville (Netflix)
Louis Wain, biopic of the 19th century artist starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, and Andrea Riseborough (Amazon Studios)
The Old Guard, adaptation of comic book story, starring Charlize Theron and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Netflix)
Radioactive, a film about Marie Curie, starring Rosamund Pike and Anya Taylor-Joy (Amazon)
Rebecca, adaptation and remake of the Daphne Du Maurier classic novel, starring Lily James, Keely Hawes, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Armie Hammer (Netflix)
Welcome to Sudden Death, sequel to Jean-Claude van Damme 1995 movie starring Michael Jai White (Netflix)
The Willoughbys, animated adaptation of the Lois Lowry book, with voices of Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, and Jane Krakowski (Netflix)
Wonderland, murder conspiracy mystery starring Mark Wahlberg, Allan Arkin, and Colleen Camp (Netflix)
Some of these films will have revised release dates, or get pushed to 2021.
So grab your calendar and start making your plans–here are the movies you’ll want to see in 2020 (and some you might not!):
January
The Informer – Thriller, starring Joel Kinnaman, Rosamund Pike, Ana de Armas, Common, and Clive Owen – January 10.
Underwater– Thriller, stars Kristin Stewart in underwater horror story – January 10.
Dolittle– Family/Comedy, stars Robert Downey, Jr. in remake of the classic, with voices of Tom Holland, Rami Malek, Octavia Spencer, Emma Thompson, Antonio Banderas, Ralph Fiennes, and Michael Sheen – January 17.
If you want to see how much the 1980s-inspired Stranger Things has worked itself into the 21st century zeitgeist, you need only turn to the last three big studio trailers revealed over the past three days. Make no mistake, if Stranger Things isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread it’s pretty close, full of fun characters and great riffs on some of our favorite bits of nostalgia. So why shouldn’t everything and everyone try to get on the bandwagon?
The most exciting trailer comes from a film Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray have been interviewed about since Ghostbusters II. Taking a cue from Halloween, Predator, and Terminator, the franchise is doing some skipping of reboots and making Ghostbusters: Afterlife a direct sequel to Ghostbusters II. The lead role will be played by young (perfectly cast) Mckenna Grace, who has appeared in lots of genre films and shows (Ready Player One, Independence Day: Resurgence, Captain Marvel, and horror franchises: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Annabelle, Amityville, and Hill House). In a nice nod to the late Ghostbusters co-star and writer Harold Ramis, she and Stranger Things co-star Finn Wolfhard (who wore his own Ghostbusters suit in his series) will play the grandkids of Ramis’s character, Dr. Egon Spengler. Shifting to a prairie setting from the city, the tone feels more like the creepy and cool Netflix series in the first trailer, but it hints that slime-bearing apparitions we last saw in Manhattan will be showing their faces soon. And a bonus: Paul Rudd(Ant-Man) plays the grade school teacher, and the kids’ mom is played by Carrie Coon (Avengers: Infinity War). Plus Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts–everyone but Rick Moranis–have been confirmed for at least a cameo. And there’s an El Camino and the return of the Ecto-1. What more could you want?
Along with Ghostbusters: Afterlifeare new trailers for Wonder Woman 1984 and Free Guy. As you’d guess from the title, Wonder Woman 1984 is also looking back to the 1980s, complete with a big shopping mall action scene like we saw this summer in Stranger Things. It looks like it’s trying to be a Marvel movie, complete with a World War-era soldier named Steve (Chris Pine) making his return from the past to co-star and Gal Gadot back in her title role, making an Iron Man entrance. The movie has a comedic actor starring as a kooky villain (Kristen Wiig), making it look like we’re going to get another Superman III–yet another 1980s thing. The third movie in our Stranger Things vibe is Free Guy, starring Ryan Reynolds in a spin on the lead character of the LEGO movies–here he is a video game character as in the 1980s nostalgia-filled Ready Player One, a non-player character who decides he wants to be the hero. The movie co-stars the guy who plays our favorite character in Stranger Things,Joe Keery. It doesn’t look like Tron, but we’ll take it.
Check out these trailers with a Stranger Things vibe for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Wonder Woman 1984, and Free Guy:
It’s not every location for a TV series that becomes the best part of the that series. For the third season of Stranger Things, which arrived on Netflix this Fourth of July weekend, the big win was Starcourt Mall. Maybe it’s the fact so many of us have vivid memories of their own mall for their first jobs, for birthday parties, or where they bought their favorite shoes, rendezvoused with friends, and watched their favorite movies–or just as likely, the fact that so many younger viewers weren’t around to witness malls of the 1980s and can only guess what they were like–whatever the reason, Stranger Things showrunners the Duffer Brothers (Ross and Matt) made a wise move setting a major part of this year’s eight episodes there. Initially Netflix kept its Starcourt Mall intact for a possible tourist attraction (actually a rebuilt section of Duluth, Georgia’s Gwinnett Place Mall, far away from Indiana), but early crowds and the inability to make a deal resulted in trashing the sets entirely (except Scoops Away, which went into storage). Now nothing remains of the rented space in the mall used for the series, but what a great idea gone to waste!
So what other than the mall makes for the good and bad this season on Stranger Things?
Six writers concocted interwoven storylines that matched the prior two seasons–the series is consistent, neither better nor worse than past seasons, but just as good and even great in places. That fandom phrase “I’d rather watch bad [insert: Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. here] than anything else” rings true for Stranger Things, although you’ll rarely find much that qualifies as completely “bad.” Each season has those early season episodes that make the story seem like the greatest thing since the 1980s, and yet other episodes stumble. That was true this season. The best thread tracked older teen Joe Keery′s Steve Harrington and one of the series’ main four kids, Gaten Matarazzo′s Dustin Henderson. Dustin has just returned from a science camp, to find the two series kid leads Finn Wolfhard′s Mike Wheeler and Millie Bobby Brown′s Eleven/El inseparable in their young romance. The best recurring question of the season is whether Dustin’s girlfriend Suzie is real or imaginary. Steve works at the mall now with a grumbly gal named Robin, played by Maya Hawke, who becomes another high point of the season, and integral to moving the story forward. What better way to launch the career of the daughter of popular and acclaimed actors Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke than a fun season of Stranger Things? (Her work and quick development of a likeable character promises a huge career is in store for her). Growing out of the events of last season, Dustin and Steve, with co-worker Robin, embark on a mission to save their friends, Hawkins, and the world from a beast connected to El, Noah Schnapp′s Will Byers, and the Demogorgon of past seasons, and a new, perfectly timed 1980s nemesis: the Russians, led by Andrey Ivchenko as a thug mash-up of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert Patrick in their Terminator series roles.
The other series cast members are divided into three teams, each slowly piecing together clues to solve the season’s riddles, with older teens Natalie Dyer′s Nancy Wheeler and Charlie Heaton′s Jonathan Byers still a couple, but now struggling against 1980s office politics, including a vile co-worker played in typical Busey fashion by Jake Busey. The other kids–El, Mike, Will, Caleb McLaughlin′s Lucas Sinclair and Sadie Sink′s Max Mayfield, also still a couple, reflect most of the “coming of age” story that dominated past seasons. The best of this is the visual nostalgia accompanying an El and Max outing to the aforementioned Starcourt Mall. The adults are back, with top-billed star Winona Ryder getting some better development this season as Joyce Byers, the first to realize something is again wrong in Hawkins. David Harbour is back as police chief Jim Hopper, but unfortunately his character is the low point of the season–he gets tossed around and becomes the butt of jokes as with last season, instead of carrying forward that decisive, strong, cool personality we met in Stranger Things′ first season.
Netflix released the first trailer for the third season ofStranger Things, on its way to the streaming platform this Fourth of July. The main cast is all back, with David Harbour‘s Sheriff Hopper trying to raise teenager Eleven (played by Millie Bobby Brown), who is now best buds with Max (Sadie Sink). Following up on last season, Gaten Matarazzo‘s Dustin is still pals with Joe Keery‘s Steve Harrington, and everyone else looks more than a bit older. With last season’s hero Bob Newby (Sean Astin) obviously not returning, backfilling the fan favorite actors from the 1980s means the introduction to the series of newcomers Cary Elwes(The Princess Bride, Psych) and Jake Busey(Starship Troopers, Contact) taking on more than guest roles this season, as revealed in the trailer.
It’s now the Summer of 1985, but we’re back in Hawkins, so that means more bad things are coming our way from the Upside Down. More music you remember that was played to death on the radio. More fashion, big hair, and 1980s designs. New villains, new beasties. And a big new addition: The Mall and the battle at Starcourt. But we hear the pretzels aren’t even that good, so…
Take a look at this great preview for Season 3 of the next best thing since the 1980s, Stranger Things:
Thanks to some fine writing and acting in Season 2 of Netflix’s hit series Stranger Things, actor Joe Keery’s character Steve Harrington did a 180 degree switch from Season One and became one of two heroes of the second season (that other hero of course was Sean Astin’s Bob Newby). But as seen in a teaser released this week for Season 3, poor Steve gets to go through every teenagers’ worst hazing ritual, working the part-time fast-food job. Worse yet, he somehow got pulled into co-starring in a local commercial in the Stranger Things town of good ol’ Hawkins, Indiana.
It looks smartly spot-on for a vintage local mall commercial. Starcourt Mall is sure to be the location for some supernatural activity next year when the series returns. You only wish they’d found a way to get the rights to Happy Joe’s Pizza, but, heck, this new shop will pass for Bresler’s 33 Flavors or Baskin-Robbins. And isn’t that what everyone’s reaction is? Asking: What does this mall have that “my mall” had? So this commercial shows us Claire’s, The Gap, Orange Julius, Regis Hair Salon, Radio Shack, JC Penney, Waldenbooks, Zales, The Original Cookie Co., Wicks ‘n’ Sticks, Burger King, and Sam Goody (our Midwest city malls didn’t have these last three).
The actress is Maya Hawke playing new character Robin, in the teaser released on the series’ Twitter feed.
Before we show the teaser, a quick heads-up: Stranger Things fans who visit San Diego Comic-Con this week should check out Dark Horse Comics’ booth #2615, where they can get a free copy of a new Stranger Things comic book. That’s a panel from the comic above.
Here’s the teaser commercial for Season 3 of Stranger Things:
