It was always around this time of year growing up when the Entertainment Weekly summer movie preview arrived in the mailbox. In a time before breathless social media speculation fed pre-release hype cycles to unhealthy extents, this issue made the impending season feel real by carefully teasing some of the biggest titles.
Now, Entertainment Weekly is no more (at least, not in print). And it also feels a bit like the summer movie season is hanging on by a thread as well. I actually planned this newsletter because, frankly, I wasn’t entirely sure what was coming out in the coming months off the top of my head. Not to be presumptuous, but I’m going to guess that if I barely know … you might not either.
So consider this a little bit of News You Can Use ™️ — here are the summer’s biggest cinematic attractions. It’s a bit of a choose your own adventure, divided into blockbusters, indies, and internationals.
PSA: this post will almost certainly cut off in your email, so you might want to read it in the app (or on the site).
BLOCKBUSTERS
Marvel, of course, has a big presence this summer. They own the coveted first weekend of May slot with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (May 6, trailer). Allegedly, I will need to know what happens in WandaVision to understand this movie, so catch me on Wikipedia because keeping up with Marvel on the silver screen is cumbersome enough.
Allegedly, we’re still getting Thor: Love & Thunder (July 8), but the marketing has been suspiciously quiet. Luckily for them, I can tide myself over on those bizarre throuple pics from filming last year:
Elsewhere from the Mouse House, we’re also getting Toy Story spinoff Lightyear (June 17, trailer). Will the movie outdo the entertainment value the Internet got from star Chris Evans announcing the film? We’ll see!
I suspect I’ll be less enthused on the animation front with Minions: The Rise of Gru (July 1, trailer). How silly I was to think in 2009 that these gibberish-spouting TicTacs would simply go away in time.
As far as I’m concerned, the movie event of the summer is Jordan Peele’s third feature Nope (July 23). I have seen the trailer once, and that’s all I need to be sold. I will try my hardest not to watch again and just let whatever he’s got prepared for us knock me off my feet.
As somewhat of a Baz Luhrmann apologist — his take on The Great Gatsby is GOOD — I’m going to mark myself as being cautiously optimistic for his Elvis (June 24) biopic, even though this trailer leaves a lot to be desired. (What is Tom Hanks doing here?!) We’ll find out soon enough if it's an Australia-level flop when it premieres at Cannes in May.
We’ll get plenty of old franchises battling to see if anyone still cares this summer. There’s Jurassic World Dominion (June 10, trailer), which brings out the big guns of Neill, Dern, and Goldblum from the Spielberg original to try and regain our attention. After the first Jurassic World broke the all-time weekend box office record in 2015, it just feels like no one really cares all that much to continue engaging with the series.
There feels like more organic appetite for Top Gun: Maverick (May 27), perhaps because Tom Cruise seems to be the last man standing among a dying breed of marquee action stars. He’s been selective enough with his projects that they still feel like an event. (I’m also hoping that this shoots co-star Glen Powell into the stratosphere as well.)
Among “original” movies, we’ll see if the combination of Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock leading a spirited ensemble can get people to see the kinetic action comedy Bullet Train (July 29, trailer). I think a likelier sleeper hit is the Ethan Hawke-starrer The Black Phone (June 24, trailer) given that theatrical audiences seem to still show up for horror movies.
Perhaps the most comforting, “nature is healing” moment for me? The fact that we’ll be getting Reese’s Book Club pick Where the Crawdads Sing (July 15) as a theatrically released feature film rather than an overextended eight-episode miniseries. They don’t all the need to be that long, execs!
INDIES
A24 looks like they’re gonna A24 with the full range of their off-kilter sensibilities on full display. There’s the feature-length adaptation of the popular short film series Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (June 24, trailer) to bring the charm and recent SXSW premiere Bodies Bodies Bodies (August 5) to bring the screams. If there’s one destined for mainstream breakout, however, it’s likely to be Alex Garland’s Men (May 20). After the pure “WTF” of his last film Annihilation, I can’t wait to see what he does to bend our minds this time.
I get the sense upstart label Neon (the people who brought you Parasite) probably has a few other titles to add to the release schedule for the summer, especially towards the largely vacant tail end. For now, it’s all about the corporeal between their porn industry-set Pleasure (May 13, trailer) and the Cannes-bound body horror Crimes of the Future (TBD June) from genre master David Cronenberg.
Focus Features has yet to put out much in the way of trailers apart from 2 Downton 2 Abbey — AKA Downtown Abbey: A New Era (May 20, trailer). I’m happy for you if this makes you happy; I just never invested my time in it. There’s little known about their other two releases, which include B.J. Novak’s murder mystery Vengeance (July 29) and future AARP Movies for Grownups Awards powerhouse Mrs Harris Goes to Paris (July 15).
Elsewhere, some Sundance 2022 films I’ve seen to dissuade you from: Watcher (June 3) and Resurrection (August 5), both of which squander their horror-adjacent premises for largely inert drama. Emily the Criminal (August 12) is at least moderately successful as an “it’s the economy, stupid” moral tale, and it features Aubrey Plaza doing some solid against-type work.
Some Sundance movies I can wholeheartedly recommend: Jerrod Carmichael’s suicide pact comedy On the Count of Three (May 13 — though not officially confirmed) and Cooper Raiff’s bar mitzvah party-starter dramedy Cha Cha Real Smooth (June 17). These film are wise beyond their years as they follow the sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always real misadventures of their lost male protagonists. They were both among my favorites of their respective festivals, winning me over with their keen wit and insight. Cha Cha Real Smooth in particular is the kind of summer indie film that makes a lot of noise (think a Little Miss Sunshine or (500) Days of Summer), and I hope Apple TV+ gets it widely seen.
I’m not entirely sure where to sort Hulu debuts Fire Island (6/3), a queering of Pride and Prejudice, and Sundance breakout Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (6/17), a delightful two-hander about overcoming sexual shame featuring a luminous Emma Thompson. Maybe there will be some sort of theatrical play? Maybe they’re going straight to streaming? Either way, both seem like the kind of sophisticated Searchlight summer crowdpleasers that used to do respectable business on the big screen, so I’m including them as a postscript here.
Odds and ends: some other festival titles I’ve heard positive things about from friends who have seen them are…
Heartwarming golf comedy The Phantom of the Open (June 3, trailer)
Poet Siegfried Sassoon biopic Benediction (June 3, trailer)
Oddball tech comedy Brian and Charles (June 10)
Bizarro horror Flux Gourmet (June 24, trailer)
Jessica Chastain-starring The Forgiven (July 1)
INTERNATIONALS
Summer starts for non-English titles with a big prize winner: Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion-winning Happening (May 6, trailer). In spite of its laurels, I think you can safely skip this … or just watch Never Rarely Sometimes Always (free on IMDb TV). While the film deals in an important subject as it chronicles the desperation of a pregnant young woman in a French society that limited reproductive care, I ultimately found Audrey Diwan’s film brought little new to the topic or depiction of abortion.
A film from Venice I would stick my neck out to recommend, though, is Official Competition (June 17). If you think you’d enjoy a satire of pompous festival films starring Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas, I can confirm that this movie is indeed very much for you.
IFC Films is really, to my knowledge, the only major distributor of international cinema that’s published their summer schedule … so this list is exceedingly limited. I am sitting on a screener of their midnight release The Innocents (May 13, trailer), and a screener for the new Claire Denis drama Both Sides of the Blade (July 8) can’t arrive fast enough.
If you’re the type who enjoys adventurous cinema, you will at least have a response to the Afrofuturist musical Neptune Frost (June 3). It’s a wild feast for the eyes unlike anything I’ve seen before.
Big “watch this space” energy, in other words — I’ll do my best to keep you updated about the best international cinema through future newsletters.
HAGS! See you at the movies!
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall