7) Deadpool 2 (June 1)
I’m just as surprised to find Deadpool this far up the list as you are but hopefull, you’ll understand as you continue on. When the first Deadpool dropped, we were hit with a delightful surprise – a film that was as hilarious and irreverent as the character deserved to be. Off the back of Ryan Reynolds in the role he was born to play, Deadpool went on to gross nearly $800 million at the global box office and got studios to embrace the hard R rating for comic book movies. It’s of zero surprise that the budget and pretty much everything associated with the film is way bigger and, hopefully better, for the very anticipated sequel. With Josh Brolin joining the cast as Cable (man, they really need to diversify casting…), I’m hoping to be treated to as delightful a pairing on the screen as those two have made in the books. Maybe the sequel won’t be able to live up to the lightning in a bottle glory of the first one or maybe it turns out to be way better. Either way, June 1st is marked off in my calendar for my ‘annual fawn over Ryan Reynolds’ day.
6) Tomb Raider (March 16)
Tomb Raider has the distinction of being a video game adaptation, a sub-genre that has a tremendous rate of churning out trash. It also has the distinction of being modeled after one of the best games I’ve played in the past few years and starring Alicia Vikander in the title role looking nearly identical to the CG Lara Croft. Seriously, did you see the trailer? Between Vikander’s uncanny resemblance and the attention to detail, there are veritable shot-for-shot instances from 2013’s Tomb Raider (holy hell, when did that much time pass?!). If the movie can even come close to living up to how amazing the game is, Tomb Raider not only has a chance of being a great entry to 2018 but it also has the chance to buck the trend of terrible video game movies. Maybe it could even be a financial success! Sky’s the limit on this one.
5) The New Mutants (April 13)
The New Mutants is the first spin-off into the X-Verse that Fox is rolling out, a plan that now seems in jeopardy with the aforementioned merger with Disney. What we get before this all potentially goes to hell is an X-Men horror film – or at least one that’s marketed that way. After that chilling trailer, Fox latched on to the first Friday the 13th of the year to drop this spooky and potentially amazing X-Men entry. How many tie-ins to the rest of the X-verse remains to be seen, but the inclusion of Magik, Sunspot, and Wolfsbane (among others) puts an entirely different take on the X-Men that we’ve never seen before. I’m counting off the 13’s until I get to check this one out!
4) Black Panther (February 16)
Introduced in Captain America: Civil War, T’Challa was a major highlight in one of Marvel’s finest films. The Black Panther returns to his home of Wakanda, backed by a bangin soundtrack from Kendrick Lamar, to face a whole new slew of problems – aka everyone wanting to take Wakanda down and remove him from the throne. Marvel has done nothing but continually put out quality, so there’s literally no reason to think this is going to disrupt the trend. With a cast that includes Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis, Angela Basset, and Forest Whitaker to accompany Chadwick Boseman to the screen, the talented hand of Ryan Coogler will have to try to screw this up if he can’t make all of this work. I would actually like to put this even higher up the list, but…
Click on thru to page three to finish off our list…