10 movies set to sizzle this summer
From Han Solo to superheroes and dinosaurs, a barrage of characters will be unleashed.
It’s pretty much impossible to not find something to watch at the movies this summer, with a season boasting A-list superheroes, intergalactic smugglers, unleashed dinosaurs, catchy ABBA songs and Tom Cruise’s superspy shenanigans. ❚ Here are the 10 films, from action flicks to fright fests, you’re absolutely going to want to see between now and Labor Day:
‘Avengers: Infinity War’ (April 27)
Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chadwick Boseman Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo The skinny: Another Avengers movie means another world-shattering conflict and another appearance by everyone’s favorite playboy genius, Tony Stark. “There’s some big moving and shaking going on and I’m basically at this point just happily suiting up and showing up and trusting the process,” says Downey, playing Stark and his alter ego Iron Man for the ninth time. But cosmic supervillain Thanos (Josh Brolin) gives the Avengers their toughest test yet. “The only thing we haven’t tried is someone who is unbeatable,” Downey says. “For me, it’s really basic in my own midlife existential crisis as usual. I just go, ‘There it is, no one here gets out alive.’ It’s like a Jim Morrison lyric.”
‘Deadpool 2’ (May 18)
Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Zazie Beetz Director: David Leitch The skinny: All the ingredients that made the first Deadpool a surprise superhero smash are in Leitch’s “dream job” sequel, the director promises: a heartfelt component, subversive comedy and even more colorful characters. The latter includes the introduction of X-Force, Deadpool’s do-gooding squad that includes mercenary Domino (Beetz). “Building a team in the classic style of all action movies, there’s great opportunity for conflict,” Leitch says. True, Deadpool doesn’t always play well with others, “but it’s not because he doesn’t want to. Maybe his fun, never-stop-talking personality is a little grating and people get tired of him. It’s not for lack of his good heart. At the end of the day, he wants to be a better person and do the right thing, and sometimes his thinking is flawed, like all of us.”
‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ (May 25)
Stars: Alden Ehrenreich, Donald Glover, Emilia Clarke Director: Ron Howard The skinny: Han Solo and Chewbacca make for one of the most iconic pairings in film history, and the first scene Ehrenreich filmed in the prequel was the auspicious meeting of young Han and his furry future co-pilot/best friend (Joonas Suotamo). “They both have very strong personalities so they butt heads a little bit,” Ehrenreich says. The two also get caught up in an epic heist, though Han isn’t yet the cynical scoundrel Harrison Ford plays in the first Star Wars. “He’s more of an idealist in hardscrabble circumstances, dreaming of a better life and all the adventures he’s going to have,” Ehrenreich says. “Part of the fun is watching him face reality and learn some hard lessons.”
‘Hereditary’ (June 8)
Stars: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Milly Shapiro Director: Ari Aster The skinny: After frightening filmgoers at Sundance Film Festival, Aster aims for summertime scares with a fusion of horror flick and family drama: After the matriarch of the Graham clan dies, the survivors unearth some deeply unnerving secrets about their heritage. “My aim was to have the characters in the film not serve as devices for the horror but rather for the horror elements to grow out of what these people are going through,” Aster says, who looked inward for inspiration. “When I think about my nightmares, they usually revolve around somebody in my family turning on me, or me disappointing my family. These are the people who are closest to us. The film really preys on those fears.”
‘Ocean’s 8’ (June 8)
Stars: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway Director: Gary Ross The skinny: In a spinoff from George Clooney’s Ocean’s Eleven trilogy, Debbie Ocean (Bullock) has spent more than five years in jail planning the perfect heist. Now a free woman, she and her right-hand woman Lou Miller (Blanchett) round up a crew to rob New York’s Met Gala of $150 million worth of diamonds. Each has a distinct skill set and Lou “has an excellent address book,” Blanchett says. “She knows all the right wrong people and is laid-back enough to listen while Debbie talks and talks and talks.” To get their gala feeling “like the real thing,” Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour went over every detail, “including the napkin color,” Blanchett adds.
‘Incredibles 2’ (June 15)
Stars: Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson, Samuel L. Jackson
Director: Brad Bird
The skinny: In the 2004 animated hit The Incredibles, Helen Parr (voiced by Hunter) was a stay-at-home mom before putting on her Elastigirl suit again to help save the world. Now in the long-awaited follow-up, Helen takes a central role as a superhero while Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) is on kid duty. “She finds that there’s a certain ecstasy she feels in regaining her persona as a superhero, and at the same time she’s very much a parent and loves being one,” Hunter says. “It’s a kind of celebration of this job. She loves her work and that is so fundamentally expressed in this movie.”
‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ (June 22)
Stars: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeff Goldblum Director: J.A. Bayona The skinny: The fifth Jurassic Park film veers from the norm in one big way, Bayona says. They’re usually about people rescuing other people, but Kingdom finds mankind helping the dinos when an active volcano on Isla Nublar, home of the failed theme parks, is about to make them extinct again. “Are we going to let them die or give them the same benefits of all the other species on Earth? That triggers a moral debate,” Bayona says. He was able to create some new dinos for the film like the fearsome Indoraptor, which stalks a young girl in her sleep. “Most children play dinosaurs in their bedrooms,” the director adds, “and that was bringing the fantasy to a new level of reality for them.”
‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ (July 6)
Stars: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas Director: Peyton Reed The skinny: Although she eventually warmed up to Rudd’s Scott Lang in AntMan, Hope van Dyne (Lilly) spent much of the film wanting the super-shrinking suit for herself. She gets her own in the sequel and, boy, is she ready. “You’ve never seen a superhero origin story with less blunders,” Lilly says. “She knows what she’s doing and she’s been grooming herself for this moment her whole life. The satisfaction in watching her finally get to live it out is really fun.”
‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’ (July 20)
Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Lily James, Meryl Streep Director: Ol Parker The skinny: The musical sequel features more ABBA tunes, as well as a pair of story lines: As Sophie (Seyfried), daughter of free spirit Donna (Streep), deals with the impending birth of her child, there’s also the parallel backstory of young Donna (Lily James) in the 1970s and how she ended up on the fictional Greek island of Kalokairi, formed a band and became pregnant. Disco-era Donna is “trying to find somewhere she feels alive,” James says, but “it’s always the unexpected that brings you the most joy and strength. It’s a powerful story of womanhood and motherhood and sisterhood.” Her preparation for playing a young Streep? Watching the first movie “like, 10 million times. I sat on my couch basically copying exactly what she did”
‘Mission: Impossible — Fallout’ (July 27)
Stars: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Cavill Director: Christopher McQuarrie The skinny: Back when McQuarrie filmed Cruise hanging off the side of an airplane for 2015’s Rogue Nation, he thought to himself, “I feel sorry for the guy who has to direct the next Mission.” Well, the director’s back, Cruise is doing more crazy stuntwork and the actor’s secret agent Ethan Hunt worries past choices will have grave consequences in Fallout. “Unlike other Missions where Ethan knows he is right, this time he prays he is wrong,” McQuarrie says. Joining the franchise this time is Cavill as CIA agent August Walker. “Each man disapproves of the other man’s methods. Each views the other as the problem rather than the solution. It is a relationship built on mutual distrust, which escalates throughout the film until it finally comes to a head.”