Most Anticipated Movies of 2017
2016 is finally over and the new year brings new hope for awesome movies and 2017 seems like it will hopefully be a fantastic year for movies, with even traditionally slow months like February having huge blockbusters. Here’s our picks for all the movies of 2017 we are looking forward to, if we miss any, let us know on Facebook or Twitter.
xXx: The Return of Xander Cage(1/20): We’re getting a double dose of ridiculous Vin Diesel action this year, starting with xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. The OG XXX is brought out of hiding to lead a new team of operatives against a crew led by Donnie Yen, who have tech that could give them access to every satellite in use. The extreme sports action of the original has been taking to insane new levels, including a motocross chase across the ocean or XXX skiing through a jungle.
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2/10): The first John Wick was a surprise action masterpiece, so expectations are high for the sequel and, so far, it looks just as awesome as John becomes the target after refusing to help an old acquaintance take over a European assassin’s guild. John heads to Rome to take down everyone against him with his incredible brand of Gun-jitsu.
The Lego Batman Movie (2/10): Will Arnett’s cocky, arrogant, scene stealing Lego Movie Batman is back for his own movie that looks like a love letter to all things Batman while still finding tons of things to make fun of. A new plot by The Joker (Zach Galifinakis) threatens Gotham while Batman also needs to start taking responsibility for other things in his life, like the young orphan he took in and ignored, Robin (Michael Cera).
The Great Wall (2/17): Despite the controversy of Matt Damon’s casting (that is completely fine to the Chinese director and Chinese company financing the film), this looks like a potentially crazy martial arts monster movie directed by Zhang Yimou, who directed Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Matt Damon is a mercenary who arrives at The Great Wall looking for a new weapon and becomes involved with the fight against giant monsters that the Wall keeps out.
Kong: Skull Island (3/10): The King joins the new Godzilla universe in this 70’s set movie that follows a research team that heads to Skull Island and awakens the famous giant ape. Kong will be the biggest he’s ever been, as he needs to be ready to eventually battle Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla when the two meet in a few years. Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman star.
Beauty and the Beast (3/17): Disney has had a ton of success with their current crop of live action reboots but this one is probably the most high profile yet as the original animated film is one of their most beloved and a critically acclaimed classic. Emma Watson stars as Belle and Dan Stevens is the Beast and this new movie will feature all the songs of the original plus new ones. The true indicator of success though is how good their version of “Gaston” is:
The Belko Experiment (3/17): James Gunn wrote and produced this thriller that finds the various workers of an office building locked inside their building and told that they have to kill a certain number of their co-workers or double that number will be killed for them.
Free Fire (3/17): Ben Wheatley, who most recently directed High Rise, directs this movie that is set during one long shootout and stars Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer and Cillian Murphy.
Power Rangers (3/24): Although the lead up has revealed some things that don’t look great, hopefully this new take on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers comes together, as the original show is ingrained in the DNA of all of us at Everything Action. Dean Israelite, who directed Project Almanac, directs the new team of young Rangers while Bill Hader plays Alpha 5, Bryan Cranston is Zordon and Elizabeth Banks is Rita Repulsa.
Ghost in the Shell (3/31): The beloved anime comes to live action with Scarlett Johannson as the cyborg special forces agent Major. It looks cool, definitely taking a lot of visual cues from The Matrix trilogy, but will it be good enough for fans of the original series?
The Fate of the Furious (4/14): The Fast & Furious world will be rocked in April when the impossible happens and Dom turns against his family to work with new villain Cipher, played by Charlize Theron. In order to stop this new evil duo, Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody assembles the crew, plus busts Hobbs (The Rock) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) out of jail. The action looks like the ridiculous, physics defying spectacle we’ve come to know and love from the series since Fast Five, like an arctic chase that eventually features a submarine.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (5/5): The lovable group of assholes is back for another intergalactic adventure that will lead them to the truth of Star-Lord’s (Chris Pratt) father, who it turns out is Ego the Living Planet, played by Kurt Russell. Groot is also poised to dominate the internet, as he’s now a baby form of himself and comic book Guardian Mantis also makes her debut as well.
Alien: Covenant (5/19): Ridley Scott follows up Prometheus and also continues to bridge the gap to the first Alien with this prequel that follows the crew of the spaceship Covenant, that finds a seemingly uncharted but beautiful planet that has actually been a breeding ground for experiments by the android David (Michael Fassbender) from Prometheus. The classic Xenomorphs look to be back and this looks like more of what we wanted from a prequel to the classic original.
Baywatch (5/26): The Rock and Zac Effron team up to bring back the cheesy 90’s classic in what’s hopefully a 21 Jump St. level comedy where the lifeguards of Baywatch have to stop a criminal plot taking place on their beach.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (5/26): The fourth Pirates movie was pretty rough but hopefully this new one, since the original cast is back to join Johnny Depp, will be better, as a ghostly pirate captain played by Javier Bardem looks to be out for revenge against Captain Jack Sparrow.
Wonder Woman (6/2): After a scene stealing debut in Batman v Superman, Gal Gadot takes center stage as the Amazonian warrior, who leaves her island home for the first time to help humanity during World War I. Chris Pine co-stars as Steve Trevor and hopefully this is the first DCEU movie that is both critically and commercially successful and, based on the bad ass trailers so far, it looks like it has a solid chance to do just that.
The Mummy (6/9): Tom Cruise stars in the first film of the new Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe, up against an ancient Egyptian princess played by Kingsman and Star Trek: Beyond actress Sofia Boutella. Russell Crowe also co-stars as Dr. Jekyl, so already putting the pieces together for a possible crazy monster mash in a few years.
World War Z 2 (6/9): Apparently this is a thing? I didn’t know this coming until putting together this list and we haven’t had a trailer or anything yet but hopefully it takes a few more things from the source novel and actually gets into what the title says, a World War against zombies.
Transformers: The Last Knight (6/23): Age of Extinction was one of the worst movies ever made but it still made a ton of money, so the fifth entry is coming in June. The plot details are vague right now but it involves the Transformers influence on King Arthur and Nazis and Optimus may have been mind controlled during his quest to punch Robot God in the face. They also somehow got Sir Anthony Hopkins involved and Josh Duhamel and Tyrese are back from the original trilogy as part of a new Transformers hunting unit.
Spider-Man: Homecoming (7/7): After an Amazing debut in Captain America: Civil War, Tom Holland gets to show us what he can do as Peter Parker in the first MCU/Sony joint Spider-Man movie. Peter has to balance his superhero and high school life, which becomes more difficult when The Vulture, played by Michael Keaton, arrives on the scene. Robert Downey Jr also shows up as Tony Stark, who seems to be a somewhat mentor to Peter and Bokeem Woodbine is playing classic Spidey villain The Shocker.
War for the Planet of the Apes (7/14): Matt Reeves is back after the incredible Dawn of the Planet of the Apes for the third entry in the prequel series that takes place two years after Dawn with ape and human kind locked in combat. Caesar (Andy Serkis) takes it upon himself to take out the human leader, the Colonel, played by Woody Harrelson and it looks incredible in both look and action.
Dunkirk (7/21): Christopher Nolan is back to direct a dramatic telling of the Dunkirk evacuation, where over 400,000 Allied troops were evacuated from France after Germany’s dominating blitzkrieg. Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Kenneth Branagh, Harry Styles, Mark Rylance and newcomer Jack Lowden star.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (7/21): Luc Besson is hopefully bringing us the spiritual successor to The Fifth Element with his adaptation of the beloved French sci-fi comic which stars Dane Dehaan and Cara Delevingne as time traveling cops who are sent to the titular city for an investigation.
The Dark Tower (7/28): Stephen King’s epic fantasy series is finally coming to the big screen with Idris Elba as Roland the Gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey as his nemesis, the Man in Black. We haven’t really seen anything yet from this but there is a huge amount of expectation from fans of the series.
Baby Driver (8/11): Edgar Wright is back for a crime thriller starring Ansel Elgort, Lily James and Jon Hamm. There’s only been a few promo images so far but it’s Edgar Wright, we’re in for whatever he does.
Blade Runner 2049 (10/6): A sequel 30 years in the making, Arrival’s Denis Villeneuve directs the follow-up to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic with Ryan Gosling as a new Blade Runner agent, K, who has to track down the original Blade Runner, Deckard, a returning Harrison Ford. The supporting cast is insane with Robin Wright, Jared Leto, Dave Bautista, Ana De Armas and Mackenzie Davis and it looks like it’s definitely trying to match the visual style of the original.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (10/6): A sequel to one of the biggest surprises of 2015, Taron Edgerton’s Eggsy is back for a new espionage plot that involves the American version of the Kingsman, The Statesmen, and Channing Tatum and Colin Firth is somehow back as Harry Hart. Matthew Vaughn is back to direct and hopefully he’ll try to top the insane action he brought to the first movie.
The Commuter (10/13): It’s a new Liam Neeson action movie, what else do you need to know? Well, Neeson plays a businessman who gets caught up in a criminal conspiracy on his train ride home from work and Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Jonathan Banks and Sam Neill co-star and Neeson is teaming back up with his Non-Stop/Unknown director Jaume Collet-Sera.
Geostorm (10/20): In what sounds like Olympus Has Fallen crossed with a Roland Emmerich disaster movie, Gerard Butler plays a man who has to head into space to prevent climate-controlling satellites from unleashing a storm that could destroy the planet while his brother finds out about a plot to assassinate the presdient. Kathryn Winnick from Vikings, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish and Andy Garcia co-star and Dean Devlin, who normally produces, is directing.
Saw: Legacy (10/27): Details are scant but a new Saw is apparently on the way this year with the Spierig Brothers, who directed the trippy time travel movie Predestination, at the helm. It’s not clear if it’s going to reboot or continue the story of the original seven movies and no casting of new or returning cast members has revealed but Tobin Bell’s gotta show up at some point, right?
Thor: Ragnorak (11/3): The God of Thunder is finally back with his third solo movie that has him having to track down his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) to stop the Apocalypse. Tom Hiddleston is back as Loki and Mark Ruffalo will also co-star as The Hulk, who may be battling as an intergalactic gladiator. Also, as we learned in the after credits scene, Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) may be helping out as well. Taika Waititi, who directed and co-starred in the hilarious What We Do in the Shadows, is directing.
Justice League (11/17): Following Batman v Superman, Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) must assemble a team of superheroes to battle the intergalactic threat of Steppenwolf. The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) all get recruited and, if you know anything about comic books, Henry Cavill’s Superman will be back as well.
Star Wars Episode VIII (12/15): We don’t really have any info on the new Star Wars movie but, c’mon, it’s Star Wars, we’re all going to see it as always. The main thread that should continue from The Force Awakens will be Rey (Daisy Ridley) training as a Jedi with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) while Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) gets more lessons in the Dark Side from the mysterious Snoak. Rian Johnson, who directed Looper, Brick and some of the best Breaking Bad episodes, is on board to direct.
Jumanji (12/22): The Rock, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan star in a sequel to the Robin Williams 90’s classic, which seems, based on hints dropped by The Rock, that maybe Jumanji is a video game now or maybe their characters are all sucked into the board game from different time periods? The Rock promised to honor the legacy of the first film and Williams in particular and Jake Kasdan, who directed Bad Teacher and one of the executive producers on New Girl, is directing.
The Six Billion Dollar Man (12/22): Mark Wahlberg seems like he’s stepping into the cyborg shoes of Lee Majors for a reboot of the classic TV show, who now costs Six Billion thanks to inflation.