So what event will bring these dozens of characters into common orbit? It ain’t Peter Parker’s high school graduation. Can the movie do justice to all of these characters and tell a story that doesn’t spiral out of control and one that meaningfully positions the various players who will populate the next wave of MCU films, each of which will be, in a way, a sequel to this one? It’s a tricky game Marvel plays, but so far – 10 years in – they’ve proved that even with occasional stumbles, they play it remarkably and uniquely well. I mean…Jesus, look at that cast list! The actors’ salaries alone must have made this one of the most expensive movies of all time. Now we’ve got Doctor Strange and Ant-Man, Vision and Falcon, Black Panther and Spider-Man, plus a crew of galaxy-guarding misfits. When Avengers: Infinity War drops next month, the MCU will be eighteen movies deep. I remember wondering how 2012’s first Marvel team-up The Avengers would handle bringing together the six primary heroes introduced across its first five films – Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye – and service each of their character arcs as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) story at large. Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeelyĬast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Scarlett Johannson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Paul Bettany, Linda Cardellini, Don Cheadle, Idris Elba, Jon Favreau, Anthony Mackie, Elisabeth Olsen, Sebastian Stan, Angela Bassett, Dave Bautista, Chadwick Boseman, Josh Brolin, Bradley Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch, Benicio del Toro, Vin Diesel, Winston Duke, Karen Gillen, Danai Gurira, Tom Holland, Pom Klementieff, Chris Pratt, Paul Rudd, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Wong, Letitia Wright, Peter Dinklage So if this turns out to be a spiritual marriage of Apocalypse Now and 2001: A Space Odyssey, well, that sounds like something to see. The sense of familiarity doesn’t make me any less interested in a new film by Gray, a serious-minded and underrated director who has named Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as a reference point for this film. Maybe Ad Astra will follow the same formula, or maybe it will turn in a different direction. We’ve seen similar plots before: space crew disappears on a dangerous mission, new crew goes off to try and find out what happens to them. The son ventures out into the solar system in hopes of discovering what happened. Pitt plays an army engineer, possibly autistic, whose father departed on a mission to Neptune 20 years earlier in search of extra-terrestrial life and never returned. Either way, there’s little to say about it at the stage. It’s currently set for January 11, 2019…but that suggests to many that 20th Century Fox may be planning for a limited release in late December to qualify it for awards consideration, with the January date set for wider distribution. There’s a question as to whether this sci-fi drama will even be released this year. But from where I stand now, here are 20 I’m especially keen to experience.Ĭast: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Donald Sutherland, Loren Dean, Kimberly Elise, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Jamie Kennedy, John Ortiz Who knows what movies expected in 2019 might be moved up (possibly Scorsese and De Niro’s first collaboration in over 20 years, The Irishman?) or what little under-the-radar title will cast a universal spell (who could have anticipated Lady Bird?). At this time 12 months ago, The Post and All The Money in the World hadn’t even started filming yet. So I decided to switch gears and just run through them alphabetically.Īs usual, it’s hard to know what the last few months of the year will look like right now. While I’m looking forward to many movies this year, there was no clear, obvious choice for the top slot. For the first time in the 10 years I’ve been doing a list like this, I didn’t have a #1 pick. As I was putting this together, an odd thing occurred to me. I’m back to my more typical schedule now, though I’d hoped to have this ready in time to include Black Panther and Annihilation…both of which I’ve seen, and both of which met expectations. Last year, I didn’t manage to get this list out until September.
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