15 films we're looking forward to this year

From blockbusters to reboots, these movies are all bound to be box office bangers…

Spoiler alert – the coronavirus has thrown a spanner in the reel of many cinematic productions this year, but there’s still a big ol’ trailer full of exciting titles scheduled for release in 2020.

Coming soon(ish)

Tenet

The mind of Christopher Nolan is a beautiful thing to behold. And we’ve seen it entertainingly unweave in movies like Inception, Memento, Interstellar, The Dark Knight Trilogy and Dunkirk over the past two decades. His latest project, Tenet is set for release next month, stars John David Washington and Robert Pattinson, and revolves around a mission to prevent World War III. From the trailer, and Nolan’s track record, we should expect this film to give precisely zero care nuggets, for the conventional understanding of time and space.

Expected release date: July 17, 2020

Mulan

Next up in Disney’s live-action remake campaign, is Mulan. Starring Liu Yifei in the titular role, Mulan is the tale of a young girl who disguises herself as a man so she can be drafted into the Chinese army, in place of her ill father. Set in around AD 600, Mulan as her male alter ego, Hua Jun is immediately plunged into the dangerous world of the imperial legions, where she must find the strength to prove herself and rise above some pretty toxic masculinity. The original animated version of the story is, for us, probably one of the most underrated Disney movies — although sadly, Eddie Murphy will not reprise his comedic highlight voice role as Mishu the dragon. Some good news though, we’ve heard a rumour that McDonald’s might be bringing back their Rick Sanchez endorsed Mulan Szechuan sauce to coincide with the release. Wubba lubba dub dub.

Expected release date: July 24, 2020

Bill & Ted Face The Music

Back before he pulled on the puppy-avenging John Wick black suit, even before he became the be-trench coated Neo in The Matrix, Keanu Reeves was Ted Theodore Logan. *Air guitar*. Ted was one half of slacker comedy sci-fi duo Bill & Ted, whose Excellent Adventure and subsequent Bogus Journey delighted cinema audiences in the early nineties. Thirty years on and Bill (played by Alex Winter) & Ted are back at it again, this time they have to save the universe (again) by creating a song in 78 minutes. Works for some of those autotune rappers out there at the moment so *shrugs* why not? Wild Stallions couldn’t drag us away from seeing what the team do with this.

Expected release date: August 21, 2020

The King’s Man

Action franchise Kingsmen, is getting a prequel this year. Full disclosure, we don’t have a whole lot of info about this film, save for a few teasing breadcrumbs scattered in interviews by director Matthew Vaughn. We do know that The King’s Man is set during the dawn of the 20th Century and, describes the origin story of the veiled Kingsmen spy agency. One man (Ralph Fiennes) and his protege (Harris Dickinson) must stand tall against a cabal of nefarious tyrants (including, rather excitingly, Rhys Ifans as Rasputin), plotting a war with the intention of wiping out millions of lives.

Expected release date: September 18, 2020

Death on the Nile

Directed by, and starring Kenneth Branagh as Agatha Christie’s eccentric bristling Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. It’s the follow-up movie to 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express and is an adaptation of Christie’s novel of the same name. If you’ve read the book, or have already seen one of the previous interpretations of this tale of murder most rotten, you’ll already know ‘who dunnit’. The excitement here is seeing Brannagh absolutely nailing one of literature’s most fascinating crime-solving studies, alongside a truly A-list cast.

Expected release date: October 9, 2020

The Witches

Based on the Roald Dahl novel, The Witches asks us to imagine that we live in a world where sorceresses exist, hidden amongst us. It’s bad news for the young boy that’s the main protagonist of the story — who, whilst on a quest to foil the coven’s plans for eliminating all children, gets turned into a mouse. This version of the story is set in America, which is guaranteed to upset a few Brits out there, but we’re absolutely frothing at the cauldron to see how Anne Hathaway handles her role as the Grand High Witch.

Expected release date: October 9, 2020

Black Widow

Just hearing that name brings a tear to our eye. Avenger, gifted assassin and leading expert in the field of yasss kweenery, Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson) took a one-way ticket to 3,000-ville in Avengers: Endgame. But thanks some Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) timeline jiggery-pokery, she’ll be back on our screens for a prequel towards the end of this year. Set after the events of Captain America: Civil War, Natasha Romanoff AKA, Black Widow is forced to confront unsettling events from her past, and we hope, do whatever is necessary to make an uncontrived return to MCU Phase Four.

Expected release date: November 6, 2020

Soul

2020 may have thrown some savage plot twists at us, but as long as this Pixar movie drops as intended, maybe everything will be alright after all. This film continues Pixar’s tradition of taking complex philosophical ideas about the nature of existence, yes really, and filtering them into beautifully told stories. The plot synopsis for Soul, tells us that framework for this film is a jazz musician (Jamie Foxx) who is inadvertently separated from his soul during a performance. The soul journeys into The Great Before, the realm where personality quirks and attributes develop before they bind to a human body. And we’re already not crying, you are.

Expected release date: November 20, 2020

No Time to Die

Daniel Craig is set to return to our screens this year for a fifth and final (probably) time as James Bond. The film’s director, Cary Joji Fukunaga doesn’t have the biggest portfolio of movies under his belt, but he was the man behind the first season of True Detective, arguably one of the best bits of television in the modern era. We know the movie begins with Bond out of active service, only to be lured back by long-time friend and CIA agent, Felix Leiter in a search for missing scientist, Valdo Obruchev. We also know Christoph Waltz is on the cast list, so we can expect the reappearance of Ernst Blofeld, and therefore ingenious schemes for global annihilation. Maybe sharks with laser beams, we’ll see.

Expected release date: November 25, 2020

Free Guy

Our anticipation for this movie has been impatiently loading ever since the first trailer was released back in December 2019. A different time. The film tells the story of Guy, played by Ryan Reynolds — who, after intervening in a bungled bank heist, arrives at the realisation that he’s actually a non-player character (NPC) in a brutal free-world videogame. Bang on topic for 2020’s unofficial Black Mirror theme. Guy must step up and become a true hero, if he’s to save his virtual world from being unplugged. Expect an expansion pack full of videogame-based humour and Reynolds at peak Reynolds. He’s not a good Guy, he’s a great Guy.

Expected release date: December 11, 2020

Dune

Come on down, the spice is right. Due to hit the big screen in December this year, Dune is director Denis Villeneuve’s interpretation of the classic Frank Herbert science fiction novel of the same name and serves as a reboot to the popular 1984 movie. This time round the cast is headed up by Timothée Chalamet, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, and Jason Momoa. The story follows Paul Atreides (Chalamet), a young man thrust into a power struggle on a distant planet, where two houses battle for control of the galaxy’s most precious resource, a ‘spice’ called Melange. Bit of movie trivia for you, much of the movie was actually shot here in Abu Dhabi.

Expected release date: December 18, 2020

Coming 2 America

This sequel just took a casual 32 years to happen, but it’s arriving during a stand-up comedy renaissance for Eddie Murphy (the original’s, and this sequel’s lead). In this follow-up Murphy reprises his role as Prince Akeem Joffer, heir to the throne of the fictional African nation of Zamunda. According to plot-leak sources, Prince Joffer gets two bits of world-upheaving news: that his father is close to death and he must return to Zamunda to prepare for ascension to the throne; and secondly, he discovers he has a son. What could go wrong?

Expected release date: December 18, 2020

West Side Story

Could it be? Yes it could. Something’s coming. Something good. *clicks fingers aggressively*. Yep that reboot/adaptation bandwagon energy is in full swing by the end of the year. This movie is a remake of a 1961 movie, which was based on a Broadway musical, that itself is loosely based on Shakespeare’s Rome & Juliet. West Side Story is an ode to a pair of star-crossed lovers, Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler) from rival street gangs, the White Jets and Puerto Rican Sharks. If you know anything about the tale of Romeo and Juliet, you can probably guess the likelihood of this story having a happy ending. *clicks fingers sadly*.

Expected release date: December 18, 2020

Top Gun Maverick

Is Tom Cruise actually a vampire? We know he’s played them, but seriously for a guy who is supposedly knocking on the door of 60 years old, his stunts are writing cheques that his hip joints shouldn’t be able to cash. This movie is the hotly anticipated sequel to one of the seminal movies of the 80s, Top Gun. And if it has even a fraction of the highly-quotable dialogue, adrenaline-fuelled action and unashamed kitsch of the original, we’d be its wingman anytime. Also if Cruise wants to drop his skincare routine subtly into the plot somewhere, we’d be ok with that too.

Expected release date: December 23, 2020.

Tom & Jerry

Yes, that Tom & Jerry. The world’s most famous cat and mouse pairing are getting a live-action make-over. When the rumors first started circulating about this movie, we have to admit, we thought it was just that. A rumor. But there it is, sitting in both IMDB and Wikipedia as a legit project and we have to admit, we are a tiny bit excited. There are literally no details of the plot to be found anywhere online, but having put some mad hours of research into Tom & Jerry in our formative years, we can postulate on what might be involved. Cutsie rivalry between cat and mouse, with a splash of murderous savagery.

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