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Summer Blockbuster Preview (New Substandard!)

April 27, 2017

In the latest Substandard, JVL, Vic, and I discussed the upcoming summer blockbuster season—most-anticipated, least-anticipated, that sort of thing. I only named four movies in the podcast, so I figured I'd do a slightly longer, more chronologically oriented thing here. Lots of trailers after the podcast!

As always, summer begins in May; this year, the big-budget blockbuster blowing you away in theaters is Guardians of the Galaxy, opening May 5. JVL's not looking forward to this one, but what can I say: anytime you make a Star Wars movie that's better than Star Wars, I'm in for the sequel.

The next week sees the debut of Chav King Arthur, Guy Ritchie's latest. The problem with this is that it looks dumb and bad? I dunno, your mileage may vary.

The hits keep on coming: The 19th sees the debut of Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott's first proper Alien movie since Alien. (Prometheus is interesting and fine but I feel like it's not really an ALIEN film, you know?) Anyway, this prologue trailer bridging the gap between Prometheus and Covenant ... kind of confuses me? I thought this was about Danny McBride going to a different planet and dying? But this makes it look like it's about something else, maybe? I dunno, I'm in either way.

Did the world need another Pirates of the Caribbean movie? Probably not. But it always needs Javier Bardem vamping about as an evil villain, so, you know, get ready for the 26th:

Also that weekend is Baywatch:

Sure, why not.

June 2 sees the debut of Wonder Woman! Look, Wonder Woman is undoubtedly a garbage character who really brings nothing to the table—there's a reason we haven't seen a Wonder Woman movie until now; nobody cares about her—but I'm extremely excited to see how she fits in the DC Cinematic Universe, aka the Zack Snyder Murderverse. I just hope she murders a bunch of people real good.

JVL is real excited for The Mummy, opening June 9; but I'm more intrigued by It Comes at Night, the new film from the director of Krisha opening that same weekend:

The 23rd sees the debut of the latest Michael Baysterpiece, Transformers: The Last Knight; as I noted on the podcast, Michael Bay is the only director whose trailers are more coherent and less frenetic than the final films. Tell me this doesn't look amazing, I dare you. I double dog dare you. You can't. You can't say it.

I was skeptical about the buzz Baby Driver, Edgar Wright's new film, was getting ... and then I saw the trailer. I mean, it looks pretty good! We'll see for sure June 28th, won't we?

More like Spider-Meh: Meh-coming, am I right?

The 21st is one of the few days in which two films I'm extremely excited for open. First up: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets:

Luc Besson doing his whole Fifth Element THING is basically like crack to me. Any other weekend and this would be a surefire-must-see-five-out-of-four star adventure. But this is not any other weekend, because this weekend also features the single most important film of the summer:

Oh, not much to see here, just Christopher Nolan delivering the only Oscar-caliber film of the summer season. Go about your business, guys.

I'm sorry, one of two Oscar-caliber films this summer season; I forgot about Hot Lesbian John Wick: