Strong spring fare from Hollywood
This season delivers a lengthy list of blockbuster sequels and prequels, along with some intriguing original concepts. Here are our ones to watch
With the Hollywood awards season now firmly in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to look ahead at what spring has in store for cinema-goers.
This season boasts a bountiful selection of the requisite blockbuster sequels and prequels, but between all the overworked and overstretched
IPs, a number of intriguing original prospects have also materialised.
So whether you are in the mood for action, horror, romance or comedy, here are our 12 picks for the most promising new crowd pleasers scheduled to hit our screens during spring.
KUNG FU PANDA 4
Jack Black lends his voice to Po the fuzzy martial artist once again, in this fourth outing for the blockbuster animated franchise.
When instructed to become the Valley’s new spiritual leader, Po is reluctant to quit being the Dragon Warrior. As a last hurrah, he teams up with a wily Fox (Awkwafina) to track down a villainous chameleon (Viola Davis), who wields the power to adopt her enemies’ appearance and absorb their kung fu. (Opens March 28)
GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE
After the success of 2021’s Godzilla vs Kong, the two feuding titans must now put aside their differences and forge an uneasily alliance against a new global threat lurking deep within the Hollow Earth.
While it falls short of the epic spectacle in Takashi Yamazaki’s award-winning Godzilla Minus
One, Legendary’s own MonsterVerse franchise continues to deliver escapist entertainment of the highest order, with Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens providing human support. (Opens March 28)
THE FIRST OMEN
A belated prequel to the hit horror franchise,
The First Omen marks the directorial debut of Arkasha Stevenson (Brand New Cherry Flavor), and follows a young British woman (Nell Tiger Free) as she travels to Rome to take her holy orders, only to discover a plot to sire the Antichrist.
After the botched attempt to revive The Exorcist, critics are understandably sceptical about this one, but horror is a box office perennial, so a strong opening is all but guaranteed. (Opens April 4)
THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE
Said to be based on the real-life exploits of “Churchill’s Secret Warriors”, Guy Ritchie’s latest madcap action adventure seems to be channelling the anarchic energy of Inglourious Basterds.
Henry Cavill plays the outrageously mustachioed leader of a Dirty Dozen-like troop of ragtag soldiers, tasked with dropping behind Nazi lines to pull off a series of covert ops at the
height of World War II. Eiza Gonzalez, Alan Ritchson and Henry Golding also star. (Opens April 18)
CHALLENGERS
Originally intended to open the Venice Film Festival last September, before being postponed because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, Luca Guadagnino’s saucy sports comedy arrives in time to catch the wave of Dune-induced Zendaya fever.
She plays a former tennis champion who turns to coaching following a career-ending injury, only to become embroiled in a ménage-à-trois involving her husband and former lover, who find themselves in a showdown on and off the court. Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist star. (Opens April 25)
THE FALL GUY
In a film loosely inspired by the iconic 80s television show starring Lee Majors, Ryan Gosling plays a past-his-prime Hollywood stuntman who reluctantly returns to work when the leading man (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) of his director ex-girlfriend’s film goes missing. Emily Blunt plays the former flame whose career is on the line, while David Leitch (Deadpool 2, Bullet Train) directs what promises to be a glossy, high-octane action romcom starring two of Tinseltown’s hottest talents. (Opens April 25)
KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
The fourth instalment of the rebooted franchise picks up the action 300 years after the events of
Matt Reeves’ War for the Planet of the Apes. Highly evolved simians, led by Proximus Caesar, are searching for human technology to weaponise their takeover of the world, while humans have regressed to an almost feral existence. Wes Ball, director of The Maze Runner series, takes the helm, while Kevin Durand, Owen Teague and William H. Macy star. (Opens May 9)
IF
Following the huge success of sci-fi horror A Quiet Place and its sequel, actor-writer-director John Krasinski vowed to make a film his young children could watch. If is a live-action fantasy, in which a girl (Calley Fleming) gains the ability to see other people’s imaginary friends (IFs), and the man who lives upstairs (Ryan Reynolds) shares the same gift. Together they set out to help IFs abandoned by their grown-up human friends. (Opens May 16)
FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA
George Miller’s sci-fi spectacular Mad Max: Fury
Road floored audiences not only because of its Oscar-winning action, but because its focus was trained on one-armed female warrior Imperator Furiosa, rather than Max’s eponymous hero. Now comes Furiosa’s origin story, with Anya Taylor-Joy taking the wheel for another round of postapocalyptic vehicular mayhem. Chris Hemsworth, sporting an extraordinary prosthetic proboscis, plays Dementus, the villainous warlord responsible for her life of solitary vengeance. (Opens May 23)
Guy Ritchie’s latest madcap action adventure seems to be channelling the anarchic energy of Inglourious Basterds
BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE
Perhaps confirming that “The Slap” at the 2022 Oscars did nothing to derail Will Smith’s career, the action star returns, alongside Martin Lawrence, for a fourth dose of explosive law enforcement. Plot details are thin on the ground, but suffice to say that directing duo Adil & Bilall return following their work on 2020’s Bad Boys for Life – one of the biggest box office hits of the pandemic – as do fellow castmates Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, and Paola Núñez. (Opens June 6)
THE WATCHERS
Written and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of The Sixth Sense’s M. Night Shyamalan,
The Watchers is a supernatural horror mystery set in rural Ireland and starring Dakota Fanning and Georgina Campbell. The film marks the feature directorial debut of the Tisch graduate, who previously directed second unit for her father on
Old and Knock at the Cabin, as well as writing and directing several episodes of the AppleTV+ series
Servant. (Opens June 13)
A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE
One of the most successful horror franchises of recent years, A Quiet Place now gets its own prequel, laying out the details of the alien invasion that tormented Emily Blunt and her family over the course of two previous blockbuster thrillers. Creator John Krasinski hands writing and directing duties this time to Michael Sarnoski, who directed 2021’s critical hit Pig. Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn and Alex Wolff play the leads. (Opens June 27)