Screen ’16

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/01/2016 (3592 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In less than two weeks, Star Wars: The Force Awakens made it to the No. 2 spot on the 2015 box office list (not quite surpassing Jurassic World… yet).

It only goes to show movie franchises continue to dominate.

Of the top-10 box office movies in 2015, only Inside Out, The Martian and Cinderella are non-franchises… and Cinderella is a kind-of franchise, the latest in a series of live-action remakes of animated Disney classics.

Still, those stand-alones offer some hope moviegoers aren’t completely addicted to movies whose titles are affixed with Roman numerals.

Looking ahead to the new crop of movies in the new year, we get a hearty blend of franchises and originals.

So why go to movies in 2016?

1. It’s evidently never too late for sequels.

Technically, The Force Awakens is a direct, 32-years-later sequel to Return of the Jedi (1983), proving audiences are cool with a protracted follow-up.

Winnipegger Nia Vardalos undoubtedly hopes this is the case, as she prepares to launch My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (March), continuing the adventures of her heroine, Toula, from the charming and hugely successful 2002 rom-com.

One year before MBFGW, Ben Stiller brought idiot male model Derek Zoolander to cinematic prominence and he, too, gets into the belated sequel game with Zoolander 2 (February), wherein his dense hero aids Interpol agent Valentina’s (Penelope Cruz) investigation into the inexplicable murders of beautiful millennials, including special-guest victim Justin Bieber.

Everybody Wants Some (April) is director Richard Linklater’s “spiritual sequel” to 1970s touchstone Dazed and Confused (1993). It explores an ’80s milieu as a college freshman negotiates his new surroundings in the school and especially on the baseball team.

2. Also evident, we need more Star Wars.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (December) builds a whole movie out of a throwaway line in Episode IV about a group of rebels who sacrifice their lives to secure plans to the Death Star. Stars Felicity Jones, Ben Mendelsohn and Donnie Yen auger good things… but it’s also worth keeping in mind the last time a throwaway line yielded an entire movie, the result was Attack of the Clones.

If the wait for Rogue One is too long, we at least can bide our time with the latest Star Trek franchise Star Trek Beyond (July) from producer (and The Force Awakens director) J.J. Abrams.

3. Interesting directors are still among us.

Judging from the trailer for Hail, Caesar! (February), the Coen brothers are making a gleeful return to Barton Fink form in this story of a Hollywood fixer (Josh Brolin) on the track of a kidnapped matinée idol (George Clooney). It also stars Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum.

Oliver Stone tries to prove he’s ever the provocateur with Snowden (May), a biopic of the CIA employee, Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who is responsible for releasing thousands of confidential documents to public scrutiny.

Director Jeff Nichols (Mud) re-teams with Michael Shannon (Take Shelter) for his first semi-big studio film Midnight Special (March), wherein Shannon’s frazzled dad tries to smuggle his supernaturally empowered young son away from a government representative (Adam Driver) of dubious benevolence.

4. It’s fun to blend genres.

Case in point: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies takes Jane Austen’s classic novel and adds walking dead.

The amped-up action espionage movie meets ribald, gross-out comedy courtesy of Sacha Baron Cohen and The Brothers Grimsby (March), wherein the erstwhile Borat plays the long lost brother to a superspy (Mark Strong).

Finally, the superhero movie meets hippie psychedelia — hopefully — in Doctor Strange (November), starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the trippiest of the Marvel Comics heroes.

5. Franchises can be fun.

We sure hope so anyway, as Marvel delivers yet another movie featuring the Avengers. Captain America: Civil War (May) sees the team divided between Cap and Tony Stark/Iron Man, with the other members obliged to choose sides. (The Hulk evidently sits this one out.)

DC Comics finally gets in on the super-team thing with another tale of fractious super friends, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (March) starring Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Superman and Gal Gadot as special guest goddess Wonder Woman.

DC villains unite in Suicide Squad (August), which toplines folks such as Jared Leto (as Joker), Will Smith (as Deadshot) and Margot Robbie (as Harley Quinn), but is notable for Winnipeggers due to the presence of our own Adam Beach as Slipknot.

X-Men: Apocalypse (May) pits the young mutants against the all-powerful Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), an ancient mutant with a plan to live up to his name.

Lest we forget: Ghostbusters (July) reinvents the beloved ’80s supernatural-comedy property with all-female spectre-slammers (Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones) working for director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Spy).

6. Some franchises aren’t

necessarily going the route of safe pop entertainments.

Ryan Reynolds takes another kick at the superhero thing as loquacious smartass Deadpool (February), following his unimpressive debut in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This one’s going raunchier and funnier than the usual Marvel property.

Also noteworthy is Assassin’s Creed (December), starring Michael Fassbender as a guy who channels the soul of a master medieval assassin. What’s interesting about this is it reunites Fassbender and actress Marion Cotillard with director Justin Kurzel following a more artsy, high-brow collaboration on the latest iteration of Macbeth. A video-game-based movie with Shakespearean overtones?

7. Isn’t it about time for a Russell Crowe movie you actually look forward to seeing?

The trailer for The Nice Guys (May) touts director Shane Black as the man who gave us Iron Man 3. But in this case, he’s the guy who gave us Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the seamy, funny 2005 noir-comedy about L.A. lowlife pairing fresh-outta-rehab Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. This time, Black gives us Russell Crowe as a strong-arm fixer obliged to work with a private detective (Ryan Gosling) to find a missing girl in the gaudy L.A. of the 1970s.

8. Cartoon time is all the time.

Po (voiced by Jack Black) finally meets his biological father Li (Bryan Cranston) in Kung Fu Panda 3 (January).

Zootopia (March) mixes the animal cartoon with the police procedural as a sketchy fox (Jason Bateman) teams with a rabbit cop (Ginnifer Goodwin) to uncover a conspiracy.

Not for the kids, the animated feature Sausage Party (August) is about one sausage’s search for his purpose in life (after falling out of a shopping cart). If that doesn’t really tell you what you need to know, note the voice cast includes Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd and Kristen Wiig.

9. Reality will be checked.

Eddie the Eagle (February) tells the story of the unlikely long shot (Taron Egerton) who became England’s first Olympic entrant in the ski jump alongside his dubious trainer (Hugh Jackman).

Race (February) aspires to tell the story of track and field star Jesse Owens (Stephan James) as he entered the 1936 Olympics in Berlin with a mission to disprove Hitler’s notions of Aryan racial superiority.

Finally, Tom Hanks starts as heroic pilot Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger, the guy who managed to safely land a troubled aircraft in the Hudson River, in Clint Eastwood’s Sully (September).

10. Theatres are safe places to be horrified.

Last year was a pretty good year for horror films (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, It Follows, The Babadook) so there is reason to hope for big scary things in 2016.

A shark comes between a woman (Blake Lively) on a buoy and the shoreline in The Shallows (June), promising Jaws-on-a-budget thrills.

A neat, scary little short titled Lights Out (look for it on YouTube) gets feature treatment in July.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca