Some ideas arrive with exactly the right creator, and that seems to be the case with Netflix’s next experimental series. Mixing the irreverent police procedural comedy of Angie Tribeca with the improv fun of Whose Line is it Anyway?, Improv-a-ganza, and Thank God You’re Here, Netflix’s new six-episode series Murderville stars Will Arnett both in front of, and behind, the camera. He’s featuring a guest star for each episode about detectives trying to solve a murder, only this isn’t anything like what you’ve seen before on a TV show.
The ninth big-screen film starring Jim Henson′s wacky, warm, and wonderful Muppets is coming direct to your home next month, and bonus–at last we have a Muppets Halloween movie. Disney+ released the trailer for Muppets Haunted Mansion, and it looks like a combination of the great, pre-Disney classic movies like The Muppet Christmas Carol–complete with ghost Muppets (or are they Muppet ghosts?), and best of all Disney tapped some original performers, including the legendary Dave Goelz (back as Gonzo, Bunsen Honeydew, Zoot, and more), and the brilliant Bill Barretta (back as Pepe, Rowlf, Dr. Teeth, and more) and David Rudman (Scooter, Janice, Beaker, and more), plus hundreds of creative production staff. Muppets Haunted Mansion is directed by Kirk R. Thatcher, who was behind the scenes on major genre hits like Gremlins, Poltergeist, Return of the Jedi, Star Trek III, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Robocop 2, and you probably saw him in front of the camera at least once, like when he played the guy on the San Francisco bus blaring his stereo–the one who Spock puts out of commission–in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. And the human leading the show, as the Muppets’ host in a haunted house they must stay in overnight, is the smartly cast funnyman Will Arnett(The Lego Batman Movie).
It’s that time of year again, time to take a look forward at what movies should be on your radar for 2019. 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 78 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? The last of the nine films in theStar Wars saga. Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far From Home.Shazam!is DC’s contribution. Quentin Tarantino returns to movies to direct Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Martin Scorsese is back with an all-star cast in The Irishman (on Netflix). M. Night Shyamalan finishes his dark superhero trilogy with Glass. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton return in Terminator. Jordan Peele is back with another horror film with Us.
Do you like sequels? This is your year. Another Men in Black, X-Men, Shaft, Happy Death Day, Lego Movie, Hellboy, John Wick, Kingsman, Jumanji, The Secret Life of Pets, How to Train Your Dragon, Fast and the Furious, Zombieland, Addams Family, Charlie’s Angels, Godzilla, Shaun the Sheep, Annabelle,and Stephen King’s It and Pet Sematary—Disney is trying to get you to move into your local theater with another Toy Story, Aladdin, Dumbo, Frozen, and Lion King–all in one year. Yep, lots and lots of sequels are coming.
Some films don’t have locked-in release dates yet. Amazon Prime and Netflix haven’t revealed dates for these 2019 releases:
Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman, a film about Jimmy Hoffa starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, and Bobby Cannavale (Netflix)
The Kid, a Western biopic with Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Dane DeHaan, and Vincent D’Onofrio (Netflix)
The Man Who Killed Hitler Then Bigfoot, starring Sam Elliott (Netflix)
6 Underground, a Michael Bay film starring Ryan Reynolds, Ben Hardy, Dave Franco, and Mélanie Laurent (Netflix)
The Last Thing He Wanted, Dee Rees directs Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Willem Dafoe, and Toby Jones; journalist quits newspaper job to become an arms dealer for a covert government agency (Netflix)
The Laundromat, Steven Soderbergh directs Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, James Cromwell, about the Pentagon Papers (Netflix)
Radioactive, Rosamund Pike plays Marie Curie, with Anya Taylor-Joy (Amazon)
Some of these films will have revised release dates, or get pushed to 2020.
So grab your calendar and start making your plans–here are the movies you’ll want to see in 2019 (and many you might not):
January
Glass – Superhero, M. Night Shyamalan trilogy part 3, stars Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy; continues where Unbreakable and Split left off – January 18.
Serenity– Mystery/Thriller, stars Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, Jeremy Strong, Diane Lane; sorry, no relation to Firefly – January 25.
King of Thieves– Heist Comedy, stars Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Charlie Cox, Michael Gambon, and Ray Winstone – January 25.
… and it looks like everything will be awesome again as Warner Bros. just posted the first trailer for the sequel to the surprise hit The Lego Movie, titled The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. Five years have passed since Taco Tuesday, when mild-mannered Lego man Emmet Brickowski and his friend Lucy saved the day for Bricksburg using the Piece of Resistance, partnering with the Master Builders to defeat the evil Lord Business–and stopping the dreaded Kragle. Now Emmet and his friends must face a new threat: Lego Duplo invaders from outer space.
They come in pieces.
Strange new musical worlds are in store for our friends (courtesy of one of filmdom’s great composers, Mark Mothersbaugh). The lead voice actors are back: Chris Pratt–the star of every other blockbuster this year (Emmet), Elizabeth Banks (Lucy), Will Arnett (Lego Batman), Alison Brie (UniKitty), Channing Tatum (Superman), Jonah Hill (Green Lantern), Nick Offerman (MetalBeard), and of course Charlie Day as Benny, the space-obsessed cracked-helmet hero. They will be joined by new characters Sweet Mayhem (played by Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘sStephanie Beatriz), Ice Cream Cone (Broad City‘sArturo Castro), and Queen Whatevra (The Secret Life of Pets 2’sTiffany Haddish).
With a film full of franchise tie-in characters and plenty of heart, The Lego Movie was a fabulous family movie, which led to The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie, plus at least 80 episodes of the current Cartoon Network animated series, UniKitty! Warner Bros. also released the first poster for the film in advance of the trailer (above).
Check out this awesome trailer for The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part:
Our annual “All the Movies You’ll Want to See…” series has been one of the most viewed of all of our entries at borg.com each year. So this year we again scoured Hollywood and its publicity machine for as many genre films coming out in 2017 that have been disclosed. The result is a whopping 58 movies, many you’ll probably want to see in the theater or catch on video (and some you may want to skip). We bet you’ll find a bunch below you’ve never heard of. Bookmark this now for your 2017 calendar!
Most coming out in the second half of 2017 don’t even have posters released yet. We’ve included descriptions and key cast so you can start planning accordingly.
What do we think will be the biggest hits of the year? How about Star Wars: Episode VIII or Wonder Woman? Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of 1,000 Planets? Ghost in the Shell? Or Beauty and the Beast?
You’ve heard endlessly about Logan and Justice League, but 2017 will also see numerous other sequels, like Alien: Covenant, Blade Runner 2049,Thor:Ragnarok, and sequels for Underworld, Resident Evil, Planet of the Apes, Pirates of the Caribbean, XXX, John Wick, King Kong, The Fast and the Furious, Cars, The Kingsman, Transformers, Despicable Me. And The Six Billion Dollar Man is finally on its way. Look for plenty of Dwayne Johnson, Tom Cruise, Vin Diesel, Ben Affleck, Samuel L. Jackson, Zoe Saldana, Hugh Jackman, John Goodman, Michael Peña, Ryan Reynolds, Sofia Boutella, and Elle Fanning in theaters this year.
So wait no further, here are your genre films for 2017:
Somewhere along the way, our review of The LEGO Movie got gobbled up by trolls. But here’s what you need to know if you haven’t seen it yet: Everything is awesome in The LEGO Movie. If you’re a fan of all the previous video games, animated direct-to-video and TV iterations of animated LEGO characters then you will be pleased with the big-screen version of the film, which hit theaters back in 2014 and is streaming nearly everywhere you look these days. Great world-building (literally), characters, laugh-out-loud humor, and songs make for great fun for all ages.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller directed The LEGO Movie. They are the duo behind 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, the coming Men in Black/Jump Street crossover movie, and–wait for it–the 2019 Star Wars movie featuring Han Solo. So if you figure guys with that much humor and someone good enough to take the reins on Star Wars created it, maybe you’ll see why checking out The LEGO Movie is worth your time. Oh, and it stars fan favorites Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, and Alison Brie, Anthony Daniels, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman, Jonah Hill, Will Arnett, Cobie Smulders, Keegan-Michael Key, Billy Dee Williams, Liam Neeson, and Channing Tatum.
Which brings us to The LEGO Batman Movie. If everything was awesome for the little blocky people of LEGOLAND in the first film, everything is not awesome in Gotham for Batman in The LEGO Batman Movie. The trailers for the follow-on film that was hinted at in The LEGO Movie looks to be very different with more piled-on humor. If you’re one of the Batman or comic book movie fans wanting Batman to get less dark and gritty and more fun, the trailers released so far seem to be targeting you.
Just check out this superb volley of four trailers for The LEGO Batman Movie:
Somewhere around the halfway mark of the new movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a fun action flick comes together. If you can get to that point without falling asleep. With the modern special effects this movie should not have needed to have been compared to the original 1990 film version. Unfortunately the slow start and less-than-appealing villains keep this one from the top tier of this summer’s would-be franchise blockbusters.
So what’s worth the admission price? First off, Megan Fox. Not for a second does she flinch from a strong portrayal of April, the well-known friend of the Turtles. She delivers even the silliest lines as if she’s playing serious drama. And the film is better for it. Although the perpetually young looking actress may be typecasting herself with films like the original Transformers and this similar action genre entry, she may also be simply carving out a niche she’s darned good at.
The biggest failing of Iron Man 2 was the “annoying guy” played over and over in movies by Sam Rockwell. That same caricature is in TMNT, but played by Will Arnett, who I have not seen before simply because I don’t watch his admittedly popular series including 30 Rock and Arrested Development. Here he offers what seems like an impersonation of the Night Shift and Batman era Michael Keaton, and it’s some funny stuff.
