Get the popcorn ready...
After another chaotic year, cinemas are hoping to bounce back from the pandemic with a fresh slate of blockbusters in 2022. Once again, Hollywood is banking on spandex and sequels pulling the biggest crowds. But there’s something for everyone, with horrors, sci-fi and period drama packed into what looks like a busy year. Here are 10 films likely to cause a splash...
THE BLACK PHONE February 4
Horror fans are already screaming about Jordan Peele’s Nope ( July), a mysterious project that reunites the director with his Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya. While Peele is an expert at blending pulpy horror with clever satire, director Scott Derrickson is a much scarier proposition.
Before Derrickson directed Marvel’s Doctor Strange, he made Sinister, the last horror film that actually frightened me.
Here, he gives Ethan Hawke a rare villainous role as The Grabber, a masked child snatcher who comes up against supernatural forces when he kidnaps a resourceful boy.
MOONFALL February 4
Hollywood’s master of disaster Roland Emmerich returns with another CGI spectacular. With the deliciously absurd tagline of ‘the moon is not what we think’, Moonfall tasks two ex-astronauts (Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson) with stopping a collision between Earth and its satellite which is spinning out of orbit. After Emmerich’s Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, we can expect more waves of destruction. But which landmark will tumble first – the Statue of Liberty, The White House or the Eiffel Tower? I sense a drinking game coming on.
THE BATMAN March 4
Lantern-jawed Ben Affleck never fitted easily into that cowl and cape but Robert Pattinson should bring plenty of brooding intensity to The Dark Knight’s first new solo movie in a decade. The casting of the villains is strong, too. His main foe is Paul Dano’s Riddler who appears to be operating in a dastardly tag team with Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman and Colin Farrell’s The Penguin. Judging by the trailer, this one will be moody.
DOWNTON ABBEY 2 March 18
In the time-honoured tradition of British TV spin-offs, the well-heeled family and their loyal lackeys head to foreign shores for a big-screen adventure. Where the stars of Are You Being Served? hit Spain’s “Costa Plonka”, here the Crawleys descend on a country pile in France, bequeathed to Dame Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess by an old lover. Laura Haddock, Dominic West and Hugh Dancy join the returning cast.
THE RAILWAY CHILDREN RETURN
April 1
Jenny Agutter reprises her role as Bobbie in a belated sequel to the
1970 family classic. Set 40 years after the original, the film promises a “heart-warming journey” set in World War II. Where the Edwardian original had a spy theme, this is the story of a group of evacuees who encounter a young soldier.
To the delight of the Yorkshire tourist board, the film was shot on Keighley & Worth Valley Railway and returned to the picturesque locations from the first film. Sheridan Smith and Tom Courtenay also star.
DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS
May 6
New solo adventures for Thor and The Black Panther are due out in 2022 but the second Doctor Strange movie looks like the most intriguing Marvel movie of the year. The first film was a heady blend of psychedelic visuals, mystical nonsense (the comic book was penned in the 60s) and wacky humour, anchored by a very solid turn from Benedict Cumberbatch who returns in the sequel. It’s directed by Sam Raimi, the mastermind behind the two best Marvel movies that have ever been made – the first two Spider-man films starring Tobey Maguire.
TOP GUN MAVERICK May 27
In September, Tom Cruise returns in Mission Impossible 7, but this is the film his older fans are really looking forward to. The delayed sequel to his 1986 smash hit finds Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell working as a flight instructor at the Top Gun fighter pilot academy where he’s taken hotshot Bradley Bradshaw (Whiplash star Miles Teller), son of his late pal Goose, under his wing.
Val Kilmer returns as Maverick’s rival Tom “Iceman” Kazansky and Jennifer Connelly takes over love interest duties from Kelly Mcgillis.
LIGHTYEAR June 17
It’s definitely not a sequel, it isn’t really a prequel and is only sort of a spin off. In Lightyear, Pixar has created an original sci-fi adventure that trades on the name of a muchloved hero from its most successful series. Chris Evans voices Lightyear, the fictional character that inspired the Toy Story action figure.
AVATAR 2 December 16
I’ll believe this one when I see it. James Cameron was bigging up sequels to his 2009 blue-creature fantasy hit when it was still in the picture houses. Now, apparently, technology has finally caught up with his bold vision. As Jake and Neytiri (Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana) explore the seas of Pandora, Cameron directs cinema’s first underwater motion-captured actors. Kate Winslet joins the returning cast.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON TBA
Martin Scorsese teams up with Leonardo Dicaprio for the sixth time and Robert De Niro for the tenth in a chilling true crime thriller. Set in the 1920s, it relates how the Osage Native Americans became
rich when they struck oil but then started dying under mysterious circumstances. It’s Scorsese’s first collaboration with Apple TV+.