For the first time in a decade Marvel won’t be kicking off the summer movie season by opening a movie the first Friday in May! They’ve decided to start summer a week early and will launch Avengers: Infinity War on April 27. If The Avengers was the movie that brought together all the separate heroes in the Marvel movie universe, then Avengers: Infinity War is the movie that will bring together all the teams from The Avengers, the Black Panther contingent to Guardians of the Galaxy and basically everyone else too in order to do combat with the villainous Thanos (Josh Brolin) in a battle that’s been brewing in that cinematic universe for years now.
The R-rated surprise smash of 2016 Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is set to return with more superhero movie mayhem with Deadpool 2 on May 18. The movie studio has been pretty tight-lipped with this one plot-wise, other than to reveal it will introduce two fan-favorite comic characters Domino (Zazie Beetz) and Cable (once again, Josh Brolin who really is “Mr. Summer” this year).
A fourth modern Star Wars film, Solo: A Star Wars Story, is due out May 25. Right now, Solo is more well-known for what went on behind the scenes with its original directors being fired months ago and director Ron Howard being brought on to finish the film. Supposedly, Solo will feature the first meeting between the title character played by Alden Ehrenreich and his furry co-pilot Chewbacca sometime before the events of the very first Star Wars.
The Ocean’s 11 series of movies gets a follow-up with the “don’t call it a ‘reboot’” Ocean’s 8 on June 6. This time, Sandra Bullock stars as Debbie Ocean and will lead the likes of Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter and Mindy Kaling in order to pull of some amazing heist at a stunning local.
Fourteen years after the original film Incredibles 2 blasts into theaters on June 15. The nice thing about this superhero family lead by Craig T. Nelson and Holly Hunter is that even though the first movie took place so long ago it doesn’t really matter since it’s animated and characters don’t have to age when they’re computer generated. Reportedly, this one deals with superhero pop Mr. Incredible (Nelson) playing stay-at-home dad to infant Jack-Jack while Elastigirl (Hunt) is out saving the world.
A second film in the Jurassic World franchise entitled Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom hits theaters June 22. If the first Jurassic World was a bigger remake of Jurassic Park then Fallen Kingdom sure seems like it’s a bigger remake of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Here, the cast of Jurassic World including Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard have to venture back to the ruined, dinosaur crawling island for one reason or another that I’m sure will make sense within the confines of the movie.
Ant-Man and the Wasp, the sequel to Ant-Man, will skittle into cinemas July 6. The third Marvel movie of the summer, this time instead of having just Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) having to do battle with the bad guys he’ll also be joined with the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) forming an incredible shrinking team.
A sixth (!!!!) Mission: Impossible movie, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, zooms into theaters on July 27. This film franchise might have a lot going against it from its action star Tom Cruise being in his mid–50s, nearly as old as John Voight was in the first one when he played a nearing retirement behind-the-desk Jim Phelps to none of the films in the franchise having a coherent plot. Yet I adore the Mission Impossible franchise and welcome each new one with a lot of anticipation.
One TV series that the pre-teen set is really into these days is the animated Teen Titans Go! which makes its way to theaters in Teen Titans Go! to the Movies also on July 27. This over-the-top series pokes fun at the whole superhero genera with characters like Robin, Starfire and Cyborg who crack-wise and almost never get into fights with the villains. Reportedly the plot to this one has the Teen Titans thinking they deserve a movie too after seeing all sorts of other DC heroes get movies with them stuck on TV.
I can’t wait!
A little backstory on this version of the character — played marvelously by Jon Bernthal, Frank Castle aka the Punisher first appeared in 2016 during the second season of Daredevil where he served as a sort of agent of chaos in Matt Murdock/Daredevil’s world. Here, Punisher was a sort of “yin” to Daredevil’s “yang” where he had no qualms about killing bad guys even if it made Murdock’s life, who won’t kill and wants to bring the bad guys to justice, a lot harder. But in the end the two did team together to take the bad guys down, even if Castle used a lot more firepower than Murdock wanted.
What we get instead is a Frank Castle hiding under an alias living life as a construction worker in New York, City. His job as the Punisher is done yet the nightmares of his murdered family remain. So what’s Castle to do? Stay hidden in plain sight and let things like a young worker at the work site be pulled into a life of crime and do nothing? Or put back on the bullet-proof vest and declare an all-out war on crime?
I’m not going to go into a lot of details here on the first season of Mindhunter since I’m currently working on my list of the best TV series of the year of which Mindhunter plays a part. And I’d just end up repeating myself here and there. But rest assured that Mindhunter is one of the best TV series of the year airing wherever. This show about the birth profiling serial killers by the FBI is so unlike any of the similar shows out there these days, and there are loads and loads of serial killer shows or shows that feature them, that it’s worth to note how different Mindhunter is from the rest. Those shows are all about vengeance and tracking people down whereas Mindhunter is all about talking, and trying to figure the killers out so that the next one can be stopped before he starts hurting people.
My favorite comic book character who returned after a long absence: The Punisher.
I’d always assumed that the making of the Star Trek TV series was mostly easy. Or easier than it seems like it is with other series, especially since the show was in production for 18 years from 1987 to 2005. But I was surprised to learn how wrong I was after having read the two volume The Fifty-Year Mission… that chronicles all things Star Trek from before the first series debuted in 1966 to the last Enterprise and all the movies as well. I’d known how dysfunctional the original Star Trek set was in the 1960s, but I had no idea how dysfunctional all the sets were. It seems like whenever there’s even the hint of success for someone, someone else already in power’s going to get jealous, and when that happens it means trouble for everyone else down the line.
