He’s certainly the most overdue of 80 years of Marvel characters to make it into the live-action world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, created by writer-artist Bill Everett in 1939, was Marvel’s first mutant and the leader of the undersea world of Atlantis, frequently forgotten in recent years because of his DC Comics counterpart, Aquaman. That’s Namor and Everett above as depicted in a fantastic tribute by artist Alex Ross. Along with Captain America and Human Torch, the original Big 3 included Prince Namor. He’s also the first superhero anti-hero, so it probably makes sense Marvel is sneaking him into the MCU as they did Silver Surfer in the second Fantastic Four movie. Audiences internationally who have not followed the comics of eight decades past or only know of the character in spotty revisits over the years will now meet him this year in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, as what appears to be the villain.
Perhaps it’s because The Hunt for Red October was such a fantastic story and film. It’s often in Hollywood that sequels are worse than the original, but with Tom Clancy screen projects it seems to be progressively so. Since Tom Clancy’s death in 2013 we’ve seen his Jack “Ryanverse” come to the screen twice, first on the big screen in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) with Chris Pine as Ryan, and later on the small screen in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (2018) on Amazon Prime with The Office’s John Krasinski stepping into the role of Ryan previously handled by Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Harrison Ford in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), and Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears (2002). Nothing anyone has tried has reversed the downward trend in quality, action, and intrigue, and that includes Amazon Studios’ new movie, Tom Clancy’sWithout Remorse. Even worse, the latest sequel is barely recognizable from Clancy’s original novel. Or his style.
Since Tom Clancy’s death in 2013 we’ve seen his Jack “Ryanverse” come to the screen twice, first on the big screen in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) with Chris Pine as Ryan, and later on the small screen in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (2018) on Amazon Prime with The Office’s John Krasinski stepping into the role of Ryan previously handled by Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Harrison Ford in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), and Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears (2002). In Clear and Present Danger, the second major Ryanverse character arrived in Willem Dafoe’s John Clark, later reprised by Liev Schreiber in The Sum of All Fears. As was first done with Ryan in The Sum of All Fears, and later with Pine and Krasinski, the franchise is taking another step back in into the Clancy timeline for the next movie–a prequel, a direct-to-Amazon Prime feature adapting Clancy’s 1993 novel Without Remorse. That book and its new movie adaptation Without Remorse focuses on the origin of the John Clark character (initially introduced as John Kelly, as explained in the novel/movie), this time played by Creed and Black Panther’sMichael B. Jordan. Check out the trailer for the movie below.
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.
Just Mercyhad us simply from the superhero actors in key roles. But now that America and the entire world is looking more deeply at systemic racism in light of the killing of George Floyd with the largest civil rights protest in the history of our planet, what better time to check out a major theatrical film, a courtroom drama about racism based on a true story, now available to rent free? Thanks to Warner Brothers, to support Black Lives Matter Just Mercyis now available on major streaming platforms free this month. It’s a solid drama for everyone, and particularly anyone gripped and moved by race-themed dramas we’ve reviewed here at borg, including the Chadwick Boseman movies Marshall and the Jackie Robinson movie 42, and Stephan James’ Jesse Owens story,Race.
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.
Three movies coming to theaters beginning in December feature actors known for their big-budget blockbuster superhero performances. But this time they’re taking a more dramatic turn, with stories based on true events and heroics outside the realm of superheroes.
In the stylish trailer for the movie The Banker, it’s a new Marvel character team-up with Falcon actor Anthony Mackie and Nick Fury actor Samuel L. Jackson bringing in the X-Men movie franchise’s Beast, actor Nicholas Hoult, to change the face of banking and real estate in 1950s Los Angeles.
Just Mercy stars Black Panther and Creed’sMichael B. Jordan and Academy Award winner and Captain Marvel herself Brie Larson, opposite actors from the other side of the Marvel movies The Amazing Spider-Man 2 actor and Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx and The Incredible Hulk‘sTim Blake Nelson in a story about justice on Alabama’s death row.
Burdenstars Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker(Black Panther’s Zuri and Rogue One’s Saw Gerrera) as a preacher and Garrett Hedlund (Sam Flynn in Tron: Legacy) in a story about racial divisions in 1990s South Carolina.
When we created last year’s preview of 2018 movies we were pretty sure we were going to have some great movies this year, but we were surprised by what ended up being the best. All year we tried to keep up with what Hollywood had to offer and honed in on the genre content we thought was worth examining. We went back and looked at it all and pulled together our picks for our annual Best Movies of 2018.
Genredom. As always, we’re after the best genre content of the year–with our top categories from the Best in Movies. There are thousands of other places that cover plain vanilla dramas and the rest of the film world, but here we’re looking for movies we want to watch. What do all of this year’s selections have in common? In addition to those elements that define each part of genredom, each has a good story. Special effects without a good story is not good entertainment, and we saw plenty of films this year that missed that crucial element.
Come back later this month for our TV and print media picks, and our annual borgHall of Fame inductees. Wait no further, here are our movie picks for 2018:
Best Film, Best Drama – Bohemian Rhapsody (20th Century Fox). For the epic historical costume drama category, this biopic was something fresh and new, even among dozens of movies about bands that came before it. Gary Busey played a great Buddy Holly and Val Kilmer a perfect Jim Morrison, and we can add Rami Malek and Gwilym Lee’s work as Freddie Mercury and Brian May to the same rare league. But it wasn’t only the actors that made it work. Incredible cinematography, costume and set recreations, and an inspiring story spoke to legions of moviegoers. This wasn’t just another biopic, but an engaging drama about misfits that came out on top. Honorable mention: Black Panther (Disney/Marvel).
Best Sci-fi Movie, Best Retro Fix, Best Easter Eggs – Solo: A Star Wars Story (Disney/Lucasfilm). Put aside the noise surrounding the mid-year release of Solo before fans had recovered yet from The Last Jedi, and the resulting film was the best sequel (or prequel) in the franchise since the original trilogy (we rate it right after The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars as #3 overall). All the scenes with Han and Chewbacca were faithful to George Lucas’s original vision, and the new characters were as cool and exciting, and played by exceptional talent, as found in the originals, including sets that looked like they were created in the 1970s of the original trilogy. The Easter Eggs scattered all over provided dozens of callbacks to earlier films. This was an easy choice: no other science fiction film came close to the rip-roaring rollercoaster of this film, and special effects and space battles to match. Honorable mention for Best Sci-Fi Movie: Orbiter 9(Netflix).
Best Superhero Movie, Best Crossover, Best Re-Imagining on Film – Avengers: Infinity War (Disney/Marvel). For all its faults, and there were many, the culmination of ten years of careful planning and tens of thousands of creative inputs delivered something no fan of comics has ever seen before: multiple, fleshed out superheroes played by A-list actors with intertwined stories with a plot that wasn’t all that convoluted. Is it the best superhero move ever? To many fans, yes. But even if it isn’t the best, its scope was as great as any envisioned before it, and the movie was filled with more great sequences than can be found in several other superhero movies of the past few years combined. But teaming up Thor with Rocket? And Spider-Man with Doctor Strange and Iron Man? That beat all the prior Avengers team-ups that came before (and anything offered up from the other studios). It’s easy to brush off any given film with so many superhero movies arriving these days, but this one was the biggest, grandest, and greatest made yet and deserves all the recognition. Honorable mention: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures Animation), Black Panther (Disney/Marvel).
Best Fantasy Movie, Best Comedy Movie – Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Columbia Pictures). No movie provided more laugh-out-loud moments this year than last winter’s surprise hit, a sequel that didn’t need to be a sequel, and a video game tie-in for a fake video game. A funny script and four super leads made this an easy pick in the humor category, but the Raiders of the Lost Ark-inspired adventure ride made for a great fantasy film, too. Honorable mention for Best Fantasy Movie: Black Panther (Disney/Marvel), Ready Player One (Warner Bros./Amblin).
Best Movie Borg, Best Borg Film – Josh Brolin’s Cable, Deadpool 2 (20th Century Fox). Brolin’s take on Cable ended up as one of those great borgs on par with the Terminator from the standpoint of “coolness” factor. But the trick that he wasn’t really the villain of the movie made him that much more compelling in the film’s final moments. Ryan Reynolds was back and equal to his last Deadpool film, and his Magnificent Seven/Samurai Seven round-up of a team was great fun. If not for all that unwinding of what happened in the movie in the coda, this might have made the top superhero movie spot. But Deadpool 2 was a good reminder there is something other than Disney’s MCU to make good superhero flicks.
We know Sylvester Stallone more for his action movies than any acting prowess. Yet he is Oscar material. Rocky, the movie and role that made him a household name, earned him Academy Award nominations for both acting and his screenplay. The latest Rocky movie, Creed, was his seventh film as boxer–now retired boxer–Rocky Balboa. His performance in that film and the first trailer for the eighth film in the franchise, Creed II, proves he still has the acting chops, and can give as emotional a performance as ever, and maybe one that could garner him another Oscar nod for the same role he created more than 40 years ago in 1976. And after his success in Black Panther, everyone is watching the career of star Michael B. Jordan, too. Has there been a bad Rocky movie? The first garnered ten Oscar nominations and three wins, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Film Editing. Stallone wrote each of Rocky II, III, IV, V, and Rocky Balboa in 2006. That changed with Creed, and the film proved the change-up was just fine with contributions from writers Ryan Coogler and Aaron Covington (check out our borg.com review here).
Like the first Creed film, Creed II looks more like a character-driven drama than just another boxing movie. This time Creed director Ryan Coogler hands the directing duties over to Steven Caple, Jr. with a script by Luke Cage’s Cheo Hodari Coker. Will this be as good as the last film without Black Panther director Coogler at the helm? An intriguing plus for this film is the re-emergence of the name Drago. The original Drago played by Dolph Lundgren killed Adonis Creed’s father Apollo in Rocky IV. Now his son, played by Florian Munteanu, seems to be back for a repeat performance.
The Rocky universe has turned into a “Who’s Who of the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” with Black Panther co-lead Michael B. Jordan (Killmonger) back as Creed, Thor: Ragnarok co-star Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie) as his new wife, and Guardians of the Galaxy II’s Stallone (Stakar Ogord) back as Rocky. Check out the first official poster for the film (above), and here’s the first trailer for Creed II:
Already taking in more than $1 billion at the box office, Marvel’s Black Panther is one of the biggest and most successful movies to come out of any genre or studio. This is the third day and final look at the major tie-in books that have been developed for Black Panther fans here at borg.com. The first book (reviewed here) consists primarily of concept art for the film, the second book (reviewed here) features the history of Black Panther in the comic books, and this next book, Black Panther: The Official Movie Special showcases the film in photographs with a behind the scenes view of the making of the film.
Fans of the film will love the many 8″ x 11″ stills featuring key characters and scenes. The book includes interviews with actors Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, Florence Kasumba, Andy Serkis, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, and Winston Duke, stunt/fight coordinator Clayton J. Barber, costume designer Ruth Carter, special effects coordinator Jesse Noel, Marvel Studios president and “mastermind” Kevin Feige, and director Ryan Coogler.
Part souvenir book, part photo guide, Black Panther: The Official Movie Special also includes sections on the setting of the film in Wakanda and on the film’s newly designed fantasy-world props. The section on Ruth Carter includes images of costumes and some of her early concept designs. Other interviews are interspersed throughout the book with behind-the-scenes set photos.
