There are big reasons to visit the box office over the next months…

The release of the latest installment of the Bond franchise, No Time to Die, has been pushed back to early spring 2021 — but there’s still more than enough box office clout coming up over the next few weeks to get excited about.

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 22, 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. We say ‘imagine’, but the current epidemic of Karens out there has us wondering whether maybe there is a little fact mixed in with this fiction. In whichever case, witches are 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 after seeing this stunning trailer, we’re absolutely frothing at the cauldron to see how Anne Hathaway handles her role as the Grand High Witch. The retrospective narration by Chris Rock puts an exciting spin on the format.

Expected release date: October 29, 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 5, 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 the framework for this film is that of an aspiring jazz musician (Jamie Foxx) who is inadvertently separated from his soul following a performance that could finally be his big break. 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 19, 2020

Voyagers

Let’s put 2014’s Divergent behind us. The Illusionist and Limitless director, Neil Burger is a considerable film-making talent. And for his next big trick, he’s diving headfirst into the world of science fiction with Voyagers. The cast is led by Colin Farrell, Tye Sheridan (fresh from the EPIC modern classic Ready Player One, which if you haven’t seen yet, you absolutely must) and one Lily Rose-Depp. The premise feels reminiscent of a few other (mainly decent) movies in the genre — life on earth isn’t going so well, a group of humans are sent off on a deep space mission to search for a new home, turns out leaving earth behind doesn’t necessarily mean leaving your problems behind, and enthusiastic chaos reigns aboard the interstellar property hunt cruise.

Expected release date: November 26, 2020

Cats & Dogs 3: Paws Unite

You might be wondering why, after the underwhelming’ release of Cats & Dogs, and the deep-cringing that accompanies a viewing of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, why we’re looking forward to the next anthropomorphised voiceover pun-fest in the series. The answer is, however bad the movie may be, however corny the humour will undoubtedly be — it will be a pretty much guaranteed hit with the young ones. And as all parents know, there’s something elemental about the magic of cinema, in watching your three-year-old laughing themselves into borderline asphyxia at a wise-cracking poodle.

Expected release date: November 26, 2020

Images: YouTube