What If…? is a range of comic book series featuring more than 200 stories that allowed creators to jump outside the usual and let their imagination take over. What if Jane Foster (or Loki? or Rogue?) had found the hammer of Thor? What if Doctor Strange was a disciple of Dormammu? What if Phoenix had not died? What if Vision had destroyed the Avengers? What if Venom had possessed the Punisher? What if Silver Surfer (or the Green Goblin) took the Infinity Gauntlet? What if Legion had killed Magneto? What if Jessica Jones joined the Avengers? What if Hank Pym replaced Stark? What if Disney hadn’t purchased Marvel? Almost all of these questions have been answered in the pages of the comics.
Phase IV of the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues with an animated anthology series based on the classic comic. Jeffrey Wright stars as The Watcher, your guide through all ten episodes, who MCU audiences saw at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy 2–in a Stan Lee cameo. Chadwick Boseman’s last performances as T’Challa appear in four episodes. Hayley Atwell returns as a different version of Peggy Carter. Samuel L. Jackson is back as Fury. Sebastian Stan is Bucky Barnes. Dominic Cooper returns as Howard Stark. Djimon Housou is back as Korath. And Michael Rooker’s Yondu returns from the dead. Plus lots of superheroes you know with other actors substituting voices for those you know from the MCU. And it all begins tomorrow, August 11, on Disney+. A few more trailers/features have been released in the past week, and we’ve bundled them with the previous trailers:
Initially marketed as Monster Problems, Love and Monsters is a surprise sleeper hit apocalypse movie, also marketed as an adventure comedy, which puts it into the camp of movies like the Jumanji series and Finding ‘Ohana. It was scheduled for release last April, then delayed to late 2020 because of the pandemic, and you probably missed it. Which is now a good thing, because it’s a nicely timed story about survival–namely surviving a big event and getting to the other side of that event, being able to breathe freely again, at least at some level. Starring Dylan O’Brien, Jessica Henwick, and Michael Rooker, it’s a monster movie so well done it is nominated for a visual effects Oscar in tonight’s Academy Award ceremony. It’s now streaming on Vudu, Amazon, and DVD/Blu-Ray.
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.
Fantasies rarely play out as you would expect. — Mr. Roarke
You could have guessed from the trailers that Blumhouse’s Fantasy Islandwould cross the original 1977-1984 series with Black Mirror, but could you have guessed it’s also a sort of mash-up with The Dark Crystal and The Hobbit?Bloodshot, Kick-Ass 2, and Bates Motel writer Jeff Wadlow directs an unexpected twist on the original series, proving such a reboot that respects the source material and takes advantage of a big movie budget can be successful, even without original show staples like Ricardo Montalban and Hervé Villechaize. One of the stronger attempts and biggest successes at remaking a classic TV series, Fantasy Island is now streaming on Starz and other platforms.
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.
It all comes down to a single maxim: Be careful what you wish for.
As often as not, in Fantasy Island’s seven seasons and 152 episodes, audiences never could be quite sure what Ricardo Montalban’s exotic island host Mr. Roarke was up to in his attempts to fulfill the desires of his exclusive guests on the remote Fantasy Island. Sometimes that meant taking guests back to relive their worst nightmares. So now that horror film company Blumhouse has their mitts on the franchise, it’s anyone’s guess what is in store. At a minimum, the trailer for the new movie Fantasy Island looks like an easy to cultivate new horror franchise. The horror movie industry has demonstrated the darker the franchise, the more big money it makes. But for every The Conjuring, Saw, Paranormal Activity, Halloween, The Ring, Friday the 13th, or Nightmare on Elm Street series of movies, there’s the nearly successful horror sub-genre that includes a little less dark takes, more often with laughs, like Scream, Scary Movie, Final Destination, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Happy Death Day. Where will the victims, er, guests of Fantasy Island land?
Michael Peña (Ant Man) steps into the shoes of Montalban as Mr. Roarke. Don’t look for the sidekick character Tattoo in this reboot–that role seems to have gone to Parisa Fitz-Henley(Luke Cage) as Julia. Jeff Wadlow, Kick-Ass 2 director, and producer of The Strain and Bates Motel, is directing the picture, billed as a comedy/horror/mystery (putting it in the Scream camp?). Other cast includes Lucy Hale(Katy Keene, Bionic Woman, Scream 4), Maggie Q(Nikita),Portia Doubleday(Carrie, Mr. ROBOT),Ryan Hansen(Veronica Mars),Charlotte McKinney(Flatliners, Baywatch), and Austin Stowell(Colossal). Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy, Eight Men Out, Tombstone) is said to be in this, too, but isn’t in the first trailer.
Still aren’t in the Christmas spirit yet? With no Christmas day episode of Doctor Who this year, Netflix is filling in the gap with an episode of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina called “A Midwinter’s Tale,” another solid episode of the series taking the story forward where the first season left off, and delving into some classic tropes of American and Victorian Christmas lore. It’s all with the twist of the darker, horror-infused world of the show, but as Miranda Otto’s character Aunt Zelda says, “Christmas is the best time for ghost stories.” See A Christmas Carol, as an example.
Plenty of Christmas episodes of past genre television series are available right now, most via services you may already subscribe to, others for a few dollars (and some you may find free to watch on YouTube). How about starting with the unofficial sequel to Die Hard and Die Hard 2 starring Reginald VelJohnson(Ghostbusters, Tron: Uprising) in his third appearance as Sgt. Al Powell? He’s one of several actors guest starring in a trilogy of Christmas episodes of Chuck, available on Amazon Prime. First is “Chuck vs. the Crown Vic,” then VelJohnson and Michael Rooker(Guardians of the Galaxy, The Walking Dead) in “Chuck vs. Santa Claus,” rounded out with Brandon Routh(Superman Returns, Arrow) and Stan Lee in an early cameo as himself in “Chuck vs. the Santa Suit.” But be careful, you may end up getting sucked into the rest of the series, starring Zachary Levi (Shazam!, Psych the Movie, Thor: Ragnarok),Yvonne Strahovski(The Predator, The Handmaid’s Tale), and Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Leverage, Castle).
In the same vein as Sabrina, check out Grimm with Christmas episodes “Twelve Days of Krampus” and “The Grimm Who Stole Christmas,” both available on Amazon Prime. “Twelve Days of Krampus” provides one of the best illustrations of Krampus, the folkloric character who has been a subject of this time of year for more than 2,000 years. Ever get coal in your stocking? Learn more here. And you’ll find some familiarity with the critters in “The Grimm Who Stole Christmas” as the new Sabrina episode. Each of these Grimm episodes is among the best of Christmas episodes, and overall great episodes of the series. And if paranormal shows are your thing, don’t forget the Supernatural episode, “A Very Supernatural Christmas.” Catch it on Netflix. The Winchester Brothers pursue some pagan gods at Christmastime, revisit their own Christmas past, and try to share a Christmas together as only they could.
That brings us to six classic Christmas episodes. How about six more?
Never been to a comic book or pop culture convention? Always wanted to go to San Diego Comic-Con but you don’t have the vacation time available or the funds? Planet Comicon is next weekend in Kansas City and it’s the sixth year of the show at downtown Kansas City’s giant convention center at Bartle Hall. Planet Comicon is a great way to get a complete three-day convention experience centrally located in the Midwest, ideal for a last-minute road trip for the family or a car full of friends. Kansas City is less than 8 hours by car from Dallas, less than 7 hours from Minneapolis, a little more than 7 hours from Indianapolis, and a little more than 8 hours from Denver. And you don’t need to buy advance tickets–you can purchase them at the door.
So why make the trip? How about meeting Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Firefly star Alan Tudyk? Also from Firefly, as well as Doctor Who, Supernatural, Chuck, Leverage, Star Trek Voyager (and one of borg.com‘s actors we can’t get enough of), Mark Sheppard? Want to get a photo with Michael Rooker (“I’m Mary Poppins, y’all!” Yondu) and Pom Klementieff (Mantis), stars of last year’s biggest superhero hit Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2? Are modern classics your thing? How about seeing the star of fan-favorite movies like Say Anything, High Fidelity, and Eight Men Out? Yep, John Cusack is returning to the Midwest for this year’s show (you can even bring your prized Rooker and Cusack Eight Men Out baseball cards for autographs).
Do you want to compare notes on The Walking Dead with stars Khary Payton, Rooker, and Sonequa Martin-Green (also star of Star Trek Discovery)? Maybe you’re a Game of Thrones fan. You can meet both Jerome Flynn and Jason Momoa (also Aquaman in the DC Universe movies). And speaking of fantasy, Planet Comicon is featuring a rare appearance by Harry Potter star Matthew Lewis, who played the beloved hero Neville Longbottom. Want to meet the actor who has played the toughest badass characters you’ve ever seen? Sling TV barista and Machete himself, Danny Trejo will be in the house.
When we created last year’s preview of 2017 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 borg.com annual Best Movies of 2017.
As always, we’re after the best genre content of 2017–with our top categories from the Best in Movies. There are thousands of other places that cover plain vanilla dramas and the rest, 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 genre, 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 week for our TV and print media picks, and our annual borg.com Hall of Fame inductees. Wait no further, here are our picks for 2017:
Best Sci-Fi Fix, Best Sci-fi Movie, Best Costume Design – Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. The Valerian and Laureline comic books turned 50 and brought a big-screen adaptation to theaters. Director Luc Besson handled the material as a labor of love, and that could be marveled at in every scene, and each nook and cranny of the gigantic visual spectacle he created. More new wonders, more futuristic ideas that had never been seen on film before, bold otherworldly costumes, and incredible special effects made this film a masterpiece science fiction fans will stumble upon in the future and wonder how it was so overlooked by audiences this summer. Epic space battles, aliens, and loads of sci-fi technology, while all the other science fiction of the year kept to their familiar territories. A gripping story about a team just doing their job, but that job is saving an entire race of a doomed planet. Besson was going for something like Avatar, but he far surpassed it. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets was everything a sci-fi fan could want.
Best Fantasy Fix, Best Fantasy Movie, Best Comedy Movie – Thor: Ragnarok. As much as Thor: Ragnarok was a natural progression for Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, it was amazing how much the film busted genres, becoming more of a Flash Gordon space fantasy like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies than the rest of the Avengers series. Just like watching classic Flash Gordon and Conan movies, we saw superheroes on a legendary hero’s journey rise and encounter obstacles and make sacrifices, across a landscape of fabulous worlds and colorful characters, and scenes that looked like they were ripped out of your favorite Jack Kirby comic pages. Another film about family, it incorporated that always fun plot device of having good guy and bad guy join forces, as Tom Hiddleston’s Loki redeemed himself with his brother and their people, if only temporarily. We met one of the fiercest warriors in Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie and they all faced off against a trio of well-developed villains. A great superhero story, too, this was the ultimate fantasy fix.
Best Superhero Fix, Best Superhero Movie, Best Easter Eggs – The LEGO Batman Movie. Even as a spoof of superhero movies and the DC Universe, The LEGO Batman Movie created a genuine story full of heart that any fan of comic books could love. Will Arnett became our second favorite Batman actor this year behind Michael Keaton, and his Batman reminded us why we can’t wait for the DC Universe to get fun and exciting again. Hilarious, laugh-out-loud funny with a smart script, full of derring-do and super-powered heroics, and better than this year’s and the last decade of live-action DC at the movies, the animated The LEGO Batman Movie proved more good DC movies are out there just waiting to be made. Honorable mention: Spider-man: Homecoming.
Best Retro Fix – Classic Genre Films Return to Theaters. With all the new releases in 2017 we were lucky enough to witness the 90th anniversary of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, while Disney’s The Jungle Book, The Dirty Dozen, and the original Casino Royale turned 50. Along with Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind turned 40. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Blade Runner, Tron, and The Dark Crystal turned 35. Predator, The Princess Bride, and Robocop turned 30. Many of these made it back into theaters this year, giving us the best Retro Fix we could hope for all year long. But E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan(we even interviewed the best Star Trek director of them all here this year), Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Princess Bride, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, on the big screen over only a few weeks? We can only hope for more in 2018!
Check out the rest of the year’s Best Film and the rest of our picks for the year’s best movies, after the cut…
With so much noise in the movie marketplace this year, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, came and went with little fanfare. But the hype of other productions and the failure of the studio to come up with a more audience-grabbing publicity campaign caused many to skip over the sequel to 2014’s surprise success, Guardians of the Galaxy (it’s really been three years?). If you were one who missed it in the theater, it’s now available on multiple streaming services, Blu-ray, and DVD, and it’s so much fun, and so good, it’s going to prompt us to resurrect our discussion of that awesome rarity: sequels that rival the original.
Get ready for more laugh-out-loud humor among the Guardians than in the previous film. Now that the origin story is behind us, we get to know each character more after they’ve been working together and their relationships are well-established. Prepare for more quotable lines from Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord, Zoe Saldana’s Gamora, Dave Bautista’s Drax, and the voices of Bradley Cooper’s Rocket, and Vin Diesel, this time as a tiny Baby Groot as we met him at the end of the first film. Returning characters who see fairly expanded screen time and are integral to the story more than before are Karen Gillan’s Nebula, Michael Rooker’s Yondu, and Guardians II director James Gunn’s brother Sean Gunn returning as the Ravager Kraglin.
As much as you’ll love the familiar players, the new characters and the storylines they bring to the table keep the film exciting to the very end. First you have two big names, and unlike superhero movies of the past, they aren’t just in the film to get audiences into the theater: Kurt Russell adds another compelling and multi-layered performance to his resume as Star-Lord’s father Ego, and Sylvester Stallone plays an important role as Stakar, a Ravager leader whose backstory intertwines with Yondu. Adding to her nuanced villain roles (along with her role in 2016’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) is Elizabeth Debicki (you may also recognize her voice in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets) as Ayesha–you directs a fleet of pilots in spacecraft drones that are like nothing you’ve seen before. And finally, the Marvel Universe is introduced to Pom Klementieff’s Mantis. Some of the best scenes in the film, both dramatic and hysterically funny, come from conversations between Drax and Mantis. An unexpected reference to Mary Poppins (!?) is probably the best line in the film.
