So 2023 is officially in the books. And it was a dubious one for the movies and the box office. The DCEU called it quits (mostly with a whimper) while the MCU stumbled and flailed (Guardians of the Galaxy 3 notwithstanding). We found out that the COVID-19 pandemic cost theatres around 20% of their viewership, a number that may not change given the rise of streaming. And while studios were just starting to get over the production delays of a once in a lifetime global pandemic, they were hit with a pair of crippling labour strikes that happened almost side by side and went on for record time. A bunch of movies got shoved to 2024 as a result, while others were shelved so they could be completed. And did anyone else have Barbie or Super Mario Brothers rising to the top of the box office food chain on their 2023 movie bingo card? Sure, we thought they could be hits but new members of the billion dollar club? No one saw that coming (and anyone who says they did might have brown eyes).
And it looks like 2024 is going to be a very mixed bag. While it’s full of sequels and nostalgic releases, 2024 may wind up being a little lighter in franchise releases than previous years. While the theatrical pickings may look pretty slim for the next four months or so, streaming looks like it’s going to pick up the slack and has some more than mildly interesting entries on tap before summer movie season kicks in. So with that in mind, here are the ten things I’m looking forward to the most this winter and spring season. Take them all with a grain of salt because odds are some of these could show up my list of the most disappointing things of 2024. But such is life.
10. Echo (January 9th): I’m ready to be hurt again. I had mixed feelings about the Hawkeye show (for me it didn’t really get good until Florence Pugh’s Yelena Romanov showed up) and Secret Invasion was perhaps the worst thing I saw in 2023. One of my complaints about Hawkeye was it seemed to go out of its way to diminish the brutal majesty of the Kingpin, even though Vincent D’onofrio reprised the role he made famous from Netflix’s Daredevil. Didn’t the great architect of everything evil and heinous in the Big Apple spend most of his screen time wearing Hawaiian shirts? Did anyone else feel that reduced him from a feared villain to a cartoon? Will Echo right that wrong? Will it establish it’s titular anti-hero as a new force to be feared in the criminal underground, giving the MCU a new avenue to explore in it’s expanding storytelling landscape? What will it mean for the future of DisneyPlus’ Daredevil show, which was sent back to the drawing board after the first few episodes were deemed unwatchable? And speaking of episodes, why does Echo only have five while all previous Marvel shows have had anywhere from six to eight?
Nothing on this list has the potential to disappoint more than Echo does. But I still have my fingers crossed that Marvel can pull it off. If not, Kevin Feige has a lot of explaining to do. And if Echo is indeed is a dud, it could be one more nail in the MCU’s coffin.
9. Shogun (February 27th): I vaguely remember the first adaptation of James Clavel’s best selling novel when I was a kid. And it scared the soul right out of my body. Not because of monsters or ghosts or serial killers, but it was perhaps the most brutal, violent and graphic thing I’d ever seen (as a kid anyway). And it was on TV. Now while I have seen far worse since (and truth be told there are equally bad and worse options on TV and streaming now), the original Shogun left a powerful mark on me as a kid (some might say damage). Almost as much as Watership Down (and let’s not go down that trauma laden rabbit hole, shall we?) So when I saw the Disney had re-made it for DisneyPlus I may have fallen out of my chair. And cried a little.
While I’m not worried about the potential violence, I am impressed with the production value I’ve seen so far. If nothing else, Disney spared absolutely no expense on the set and costume designs and Shogun just looks fantastic. If they can embrace the storytelling of the original novel (a fictionalized telling of an actual English sailor who finds himself in the undeniably alien world of feudal Japan during a time of upheaval and revolution) while combining it with their outstanding visuals, watch out. I’ve never deluded myself about the actual history of human civilization; we tend to shine it up and overlook the ugliness for the sake of fairy tales (knights were never anything more than rich men who could afford swords and and had the morals of a syphilitic cockroach), but I’ve long held a passive fascination with feudal Japan. Could Shogun embrace that culture, including all of it’s warts and unsavouriness while showing off incredible beauty at the same time? I look forward to finding out.
8. The Beekeeper (January 12th): Need a straight forward action movie with a relevant modern moral to keep you warm in the middle of January? How about Jason Statham beating up a bunch of rich guys while standing up for the little people they economically violate everyday? Because that’s what The Beekeeper looks like, a modern western where the gunfighter in question is a legendary soldier who comes out of hiding a la John Wick to stand up for folks getting the short end of the life stick from the system and those who run it. After grudgingly coming out of retirement, he begins a mission to burn the whole corrupt thing to the ground, burying it’s architects and enablers along the way. I’m not expecting The Beekeeper to be long on plot or story but watching a lot of bankers and Jordan Belfort types filling their shorts while they’re chased to the ends of the Earth by a vengeful instrument of violence is more than worth the price of admission. Now if we could only get Mr. Statham to do something about grocery prices next.
7. Kung-Fu Panda 4 (March 8th): This may be the biggest wild card on this list. I loved the original Kung Fu Panda movies, probably more than any grown adult should. But when they wrapped the trilogy up in 2016, both I and the rest of the movie going public thought it was time (while Kung Fu Panda 3 collected over half a billion dollars world wide, was easily the lowest grossing entry in the trilogy). And other than a trailer released just before Christmas, we hadn’t seen or heard anything about this movie at all. Plus, sequel resurrections based on nostalgia have a more than spotty record (The Matrix Resurrections anyone?). But having said all that . . .
The trailer for Kung Fu Panda didn’t just tickle my nostalgia bone, it punched it clean out of my body. I always thought Jack Black was an inspired casting choice to voice Po, but casting Awkwafina as Po’s new ally looks equally awesome. And making his big bad a Thanos level omni-villain far greater than anything Po has fought in the past could be a brilliant move (especially since it looks like Po may also be evolving as a character). On paper that should all add up to a hit, right? Right? Please tell me it all adds up to a hit, because after the last few years the kid in me really needs some grade A, world class belly laughs. I’m hoping Kung Fu Panda 4 can recapture the lightning in a bottle that made me fall in love with the franchise in the first place. And if it can, will this kickstart an entirely new trilogy of KFP films? Because that might not be the worst thing in the world.
6. Godzilla X Kong New Empire (April 12th): So I wasn’t really a fan of the previous Godzilla and Kong movies. I watched them but couldn’t really tell you what happened in any of them or even what they were about. They were long on special effects but short on plot and storytelling depth. But I’ve gotta admit, the idea of the two teaming up to battle an evil Kong feels a lot more appealing than tag teaming a cybernetic Godzilla. After all, unless I miss my guess, evil Kong looks like a pretty nasty blast from Earth’s prehistoric past. An apex predator who ran the dinosaurs out of town and built a subterranean civilization using other enslaved Kongs, all while wearing the bones of his victims as trophies. And he did it with a ruthless combination of brute force, predatory cunning and vicious intelligence. Hopefully that gives the KK/Godzilla combo a run for their monstrous money.
Plus, did I see Godzilla running like an NFL quarterback in the trailer? Because If I did that’s just one more reason to check this flick out.
5. Invincible Season 2 Part 2 (TBA): OK Amazon, I was promised the second half of Invincible’s second season in “early 2024.” So get on that and give me a date and release a trailer already. Because the way you left the first half of season 2 pissed me off. Big time. Just as a I was getting into the story you were setting up, you leave Mark at death’s door courtesy of the Viltrumites, you drag his father off for execution and leave our hero with an impossible choice. Either he finishes what his father started and prepares Earth for eventual Viltrumite conquest or watches as everyone he loves and values is slaughtered mercilessly. You even introduced your version of the multiverse. And just as soon as I started to sink my teeth into, you slapped a “to be continued” sign on it and left me in the lurch. At Christmas no less. That was NOT the present I wanted Santa to leave me under the tree, this or any year. You can make it up to me by giving me the rest of season 2 for Easter. And a new trailer before Valentine’s Day would be nice too. Now get on that.
4. Rebel Moon The Scargiver (April19th): OK, OK, stop laughing. The first instalment of Rebel Moon was not a good movie. It had plenty of warts, it showcased Zack Snyder’s limits as a serious film maker and it didn’t leave any doubt why Disney took a pass on it as a new Star Wars flick. But it kind of grew on me and I have to admit, I’m kind if interested in how this story wraps up. I mean, I’ll probably be able to see the ending coming ten miles off, but this is a guilty pleasure I’m hoping will tide me over until the summer movie season arrives. Something I can put on in the background and let wash over me while I’m busy doing something else because it won’t need a lot of thought to be invested in it. And did I mention how nice it was seeing Sophia Boutella kicking ass on the big screen again?
3. He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe Revolution (January 25th): First off, the haters can shut it. Now that’s out of the way . . .
I had a blast with the first season of the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe continuation. The animation, the writing, the voice acting, it was all just very, very nostalgically good. And this show was much more than the original 80’s after school commercial with a fresh coat of paint. It got heavy, it dove into it’s characters and their motivations (remember when Man-At-Arms confessed to Skeletor that the reason they all followed bumbling, clumsy Prince Adam was because he was always willing to give the unimaginable power of He-Man back after he used it to save the day instead of keeping it for himself?) And it never pulled storytelling punches. Skeletor erased the souls of some of He-man’s greatest allies from existence and Evil Lynn destroyed Eternia’s version of heaven, doing the same to their previous and fallen heroes. Have you ever seen a show or a movie pull that kind of flex? Especially one based on a cartoon from the 80’s?
Watching Kevin Smith and company work their magic with a new crop of He-Man villains while building up to the arrival of the universe spanning Horde should be nothing short of a thousand miles of fun.
2. Argylle (February 2nd): Layer Cake. Kick-Ass. X-Men: First Class. Kingsman: The Secret Service. What do all those movies have in common; they’re great, fun entries in their respective genres. They were also all directed by Matthew Vaughn. Vaughn is a movie fan’s director, able to wring quirky and amusing performances from his cast while layering his movies with visuals that range from the striking to the absurd. He can somehow make the crazy believable. And his latest effort Argylle looks like classic Vaughn.
And Argylle’s story looks perfect for a Vaughn flick too. A bestselling spy thriller author on the run from a shadowy government organization with a possibly neurotic spy (probably played psychotically well by Sam Rockwell) watching over her? A movie within a movie, with Henry Cavill and John Cena as the fictional spies in said author’s possibly prophetic spy yarn? Bryan Cranston playing the movie’s arch villain? A cat that pops up at the worst and most ludicrous times? In a Matthew Vaughn movie? Yes please.
1. Ghostbusters Frozen Empire (Marc 29th): I’ve never made a secret of my love for Ghostbusters. The 1984 original that everyone loves, the 1989 sequel that very one loves to hate, even the 2016 reboot that sent purists and misogynists alike into a frothing tizzy. I loved ‘em all and the 2021’s Afterlife, (that brought the original cast together with a generation of new ghost busting heroes while bidding a touching farewell to proton-wielding OG Harold Ramis) was one of my favourite movies of that year. I was genuinely heartbroken when they moved Frozen Empire back because of the actors strike. But here we are, a mere two months and change from it’s release and I can’t think of a better way to spend my Easter weekend (outside of chowing down on an unhealthy amount of chocolate, of course).
The Ghostbusters movies are just pure fun. And after the last few years, we all need more of that. Hell, after 2023 we need more of that. They never take themselves too seriously and are the perfect combination of comedy, action and a little bit of puffy sci-fi and mild horror. Frozen Empire looks like more of the awesome same.
