Not on the list below because I can't find a release date:The Hateful Eight and Spielberg's unnamed cold war thriller.
Black Hat - Michael Mann - 20th Feb
I've already missed this. Apparently it's widely regarded as a steaming pile, but I have never seen a Michael Mann movie I didn't love for its cold, intense aesthetic. Apart from Public Enemics, which looked like it was shot in Tru Motion on a camcorder.
Predestination - The Spierig Bros - 20th Feb
Starring Ethan Hawke, who also made Daybreakers with the Spierig siblings. He picked more succesfully than Paul Bettany, who got Legion and Priest for working with director Scott Stewart twice in a row. Although Predestination seems to have left cinemas very quickly.
Hot Tub Time Machine 2 - 10 April
Apparently it's mean-spritied, so looking forward to it.
John Wick - 10 April
A glaring omission from Danny's list and one I predict we will both love. It's had raves in the states from action movie buffs who say it's the first classic of the genre THIS MILLENNIUM. My most anticipated of the year.
Child 44 - Daniel Espinosa - 17 April
Tom Hardy plays a Russian policeman in the cold war unravelling a conspiracy while investigating a series of child murders. As a fan of Gorky Park and Fatherland, this could be right up my hammer and sickle. One problem: Espinosa also directed the pap (apparently, I haven't seen it) Safe House. And to waste a Denzel is a sin which cannot be lightly forgiven.
The Salvation - 17 April
"In 1870s America, a peaceful American settler kills his family's murderer
which unleashes the fury of a notorious gang leader. His cowardly
fellow townspeople then betray him, forcing him to hunt down the outlaws
alone." Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green and Eric Cantona. Of course it's on the list.
Chappie - Neill Blomkamp - March
After losing a lot of that District 9 goodwill with handsome but simplistic Elysium, this story about a robot looks a bit like a gritty Short Circuit reboot. Could be dire, then.
Second Best Marigold Hotel - Eli Roth - March
Early reports indicate that the sequel to the feel-good hit has a slightly darker tone. The orignal cast return, but take too much acid in an orphanage and fuck and kill the children. Maggie Smith pulls off Dev Patel's skin and feeds it to Bill Nighy.
Age of Ultron - Joss Whedon - 24 April
With Joss Whedon behind the camera and the script, and James Spader as an evil robot, this is surely going to be superb.
No Escape - 1 May
Pierce Brosnan and Owen Wilson in a film about a US family stuck in a hellhole country when a coup erupts and it's decreed that foreigners are to be executed on sight. Hopefully by Pierce's character from The Matador in the scene where he's only wearing a bath towel.
Everly - Joe Lynch - 1 May
Salma Hayek is confined to her flat as she is attacked, and kills off, waves of assassins.
Big Game - 8 May
Sam L Jackson is the US president and crash lands in the Scandinavian wilderness. A young boy helps him survive as he is hunted by terrorists.
Mad Max Fury Road - George Miller - 15 May
A solid lead to replace Mad Mel in Tom Hardy, a hard-as-nails female lead played by Charlize Theron, and have you seen the trailer? Every shot is eye-popping colour and incredible vehicular mayhem. Miller proved he was a master long ago, rarely putting a foot wrong - even when he took a left-turn from the apocalypse into talking pigs and penguins. He's returning to his roots to spill out decades of dreams about lunatic stunts in the desert, and we should all be in the congregation.
Tomorrowland - Brad Bird - 22 May
It's Brad Bird.
The Goob - Guy Myhill - 29 May
"A long hot summer in rural Norfolk and a rough coming of age for Goob
Taylor, fighting with brutal,womanizing stock car racer Gene Womack for
his mother's attention." Not only is it set in the finest county, but my friend did the (already award-winning) soundtrack.
Jurassic World - Colin Treverrow - 12 June
It's dinosaurs.
Terminator 5 - 3 July
It's Arnie.
Ant Man - Not Edgar Wright - 17 July
Wright spent years prepping this. He wasn't willing to compomise his no-doubt beautiful script which will have been a truckload of pay-offs wrapped up in a clockwork watch of a movie. Instead of adding in clumsy set-ups for future Marvel films, and toning down his script to fit it into Marvel's often very nice, but mite-too homogenous universe of blockbusters, he walked. Good for him, but what a shame - those are years he could have spent on something that made it to the screen. Still, it's got likeable Rudd in it and Duggles, and maybe enough of Wright's material will have survived to make it worth a watch.
Magic Mike XXL - Gregory Jacobs? - 31 July
Soderberg basically directed and shot this. The first one was great despite making me feel wholly inadequate. My wife saw the trailer and has already forgotten who I am.
MI: 5 - Christopher McQuarrie - 31 July
All but Woo's entry in the spy series have been enjoyable, and McQuarrie's recent team-up with Cruise produced Jack Reacher which was a very agreeable thriller.
Fantastic Four - Josh Trank - 6 August
Trank's Chronicle came out of nowhere, a troubling superhero origin story that also aced the much-maligned found footage gimmick. The trailer for the reboot wasn't fantastic, but Trank's pedigree earns the film the benefit of the doubt. Plus any attempt to overwrite the execrable efforts starring Hornblower deserves support.
Straight Outta Compton - F Gary Gray - 14 August
Could be a bloodless hagiography, but the soundtrack on the trailer pushed it up so many notches it only has to play NWA over lookylikeys prancing in front of the popo to be fun.
Legend - Brian Helgeland - 18 September
Alas, not a shot-by-shot remake of the Tim Curry and Tom Crusie-tastic Legend with the same actors, but a film about the Kray twins starring so-hot-right-now Tom Hardy, and probably Tom Hardy. Brian Helgeland's involvement gets it on the list. Yes he wrote crappy versions of Robin Hood and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, and The Postman, but he also squeezed out Man on Fire, Blood Work (I like it, ok?) and most importantly, LA Confidential.
Black Mass - Scott Cooper - 25 Sept
Depp has been absolutely stinking up cinemas, but maybe this biopic of Boston mob kingpin Whitey Bulger will allow him to wear weird hats, glasses and facial hair without looking like a coasting tool. Let's pray he brought the Depp of Donnie Brasco, and not the Depp of almost anything else.
The Walk - Robert Zemeckis - 2 October
They already gone done did a fillum about the guy who wire-walked between the twin towers, but it was a documentary with boring real people talking in it. So a fake version is not at all redundant, especially as Zemeckis directed Back to the Future AND Castaway. If anyone can capture lightning in a bottle three times, it's him.
London Has Fallen - Babak Najafi - 2 October 2015
Gerard Butler double-tapped a lot of terrible bastards in the head in Olympus has Fallen. Can a sequel take itself as seriously, or will it foolishly become tongue-in-cheek? Worth a punt, me old mucke- BANGBANG He's down. I bet a trailer is set to the tune of London Bridge is Falling Down, tinkling eerily while Butler shoo-BANGBANG Area clear, moving on.
Crimson Peak - Guillermo del Toro - 16 October
A del Toro haunted house picture! Sounds almost as good as a del Toro
giant robot v monster picture. Except Pacific Rim was a bit of a let-down. Too kiddy-friendly and a teeth-grindingly awful British scientist character. Hopefully this will be less broad strokes, more Pan's Labyrinth.
SPECTRE - Sam Mendes - 23 October
Mendes Does Bond Volume 1 was a bit up its own bum and slow, but it did have some great moments. If this one moves quicker than half speed and chucks in some of that spooky, the-evil-network-is-everywhere goodness exemplified in Quantum of Solace's opera scene (you know it, you nerd), then bring it on Rae Dawn Chong (not involved).
Steve Jobs - Danny Boyle - 13 November
Fassbender is good at the acting and if anyone can make a man looking at computer screens and unveiling a laptop exciting, it's Boyle. He turned the defiantly static story of a man trapped under a rock into the most kinetic film of the year, after all.
Hunger Games 4 - 20 Nov
For PSH.
The Martain - Ridley Scott - 27 Nov
Ridley Scott films an astronaut trapped on Mars struggling to survive. I was one of two people who liked Prometheus, and my favourite film last year was All Is Lost, so this is a must-see, unless reviewers say it is worse than Robin Hood.
Star Wars - JJ Abrams - 18 December
We pray this restores our childhood joy and does not, oh Lord, result in Danny having to defend its worth against all evidence to the contrary, like he did with the Phantom Menace.
