With the 2023 wrap up out of the way, it’s time to take a look at what movies are coming to our screens in 2024. I’m doing this in two halves, so this is just the first six months. It’s worth noting that several of the big names were actually due out in 2023 but got pushed back due to the various strikes. Dune: Part Two for example was a movie a lot of people were excited for in 2023, but it got pushed back, unnecessarily in my view, due to the strikes. Specifically they wanted the actors available to promote it. These days it’s debatable if the actors actually help or hinder a movies promotion given their tendency to make divisive comments in interviews. Then again, the last Dune movie didn’t perform that well despite meeting audience approval so I understand them not wanting to take the risk.
It’s also worth noting how few superhero movies are hitting the screens this coming year and neither the MCU nor DCU/DCEU have an official entry this year. The DCEU is dead now and James Gunn’s DCU doesn’t launch until 2025. Marvel meanwhile only have MCU adjacent content with their revival of the Fox X-Men universe via Deadpool 3 and three more entries in Sony’s more miss than hit “Venomverse”. This is probably for the best, given the disastrous box office both franchises have had in 2023. It remains to be seen if this little break will help the recent decline in the popularity of superhero movies or hasten it. Disney are putting out two MCU shows next year mind, but I doubt “Echo” or “Eyes of Wakanda” will help much.
First Quarter.
The first few months of 2024 offers several highly anticipated movies, several of which were originally slated for 2023. I’ll start off with a list and then break it down by month. Note, a lot of the movies I’m listing here aren’t big Hollywood Blockbusters. With the writers strike, the major studios took a big hit and as a result have less than normal to bring out. However, often the best movies aren’t from the major studios, so I’ve included a lot of smaller films I think have potential. Some of them aren’t even horrors!
Note: I’m updating this list with review scores as I watch stuff!
JANUARY
Night Swim – January 5th (Horror)
The Bricklayer – January 5th (Action/Thriller) – 4/10
Destroy all Neighbors – January 12th (Horror/Comedy) – 6/10
The Beekeeper – January 12th (Action/Thriller) – 6.5/10
Self Reliance – January 12th (Comedy) – 6/10
I.S.S. – January 19th (Thriller/Drama/Sci-Fi)
Wanted Man – January 19th (Action/Thriller) – 5/10
FEBRUARY
Lisa Frankenstein – February 9 (Horror/Comedy)
Argylle – February 12 (Action/Thriller)
Madame Web – February 14 (Superhero)
Land of Bad – February 16 (Action/War)
Drive Away Dolls – February 23rd (Thriller/black comedy)
MARCH
The Fall Guy – March 1 (Action/Comedy)
Dune: Part Two – March 5 (Sci-Fi)
Imaginary – March 8 (Horror)
NEW ADDITION: Roadhouse – March 8 (Action)
Damsel – March 8 (Fantasy)
Kung Fu Panda 4 – March 29 (Family/Comedy)
Mickey 17 – March 29 (Sci-Fi)
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire – March 29 (Fantasy/Comedy)
January.
First up is the Blumhouse horror Night Swim (Which will be already out by the time I post this), this is a movie that was originally due out in 2023 but got postponed. The movie itself looks so so, but it does mark the new partnership between James Wan and Jason Blum who merged their companies on January 2nd this year. This will create a real powerhouse for horror in the coming years especially considering their partnership with Universal. Later in the month Jason Statham’s launches us firmly into 2024 in solid style with the fun looking action movie “The Beekeeper“. It’s classic Jason Statham, if you hate those movies you can probably skip it but if you enjoy them you can expect to be in safe hands.
There’s quite a few lower profile movies for January too that look interesting. Those after low budget horror fun though should check out the trailer for “Destroy all Neighbors“, which looks like “Psycho Goreman” levels of fun with more than a hint of Alex Winter’s “Freaked” (And not just because Winter is in this too). Another interesting one for January is the comedy “Self Reliance” which looks to subvert “Hunting Humans/Running Man” trope. This has been done a few times now (For example the excellent “Guns Akimbo”), but the trailer looked fun and they seem to have found a new angle to it.
Finishing up the line up is a couple of action films in “The Bricklayer” and “Wanted Man” and the science fiction triller “I.S.S.”. The Bricklayer (Which is already out), looks pretty good from the trailer and is from seasoned action director Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, Die Hard II, Long Kiss goodnight). Wanted Man is directed by and starring Dolph Lundgren. Dolph has directed a few action films now and all hover between 5-6/10 on imdb, so don’t expect too much. I.S.S. meanwhile is a sci-fi/thriller based on the idea of what would happen on the International Space Station should nuclear war between Russia and the US kick off on Earth.
February.
February sees our first Superhero film for 2023 and…. yeah, it doesn’t look good. “Madame Web” appears to be Sony scrapping the very bottom of the barrel of the characters they have available. Traditionally Madame Web is an elderly blind woman in a wheelchair that helps guide Peter Parker. I’ve never been a big fan of creating a “Spider-Family” when one of the things that made Peter Parker Spider-Man was having to solve his issues by himself. Madame Web at least was always very hands off, effectively just a quest giver. But it’s still just a gimmick hanger on character and not the kind you would make a movie for. This character is joined by three more Spider-Knockoffs, the only one I care about at all is Julia Carpenter, since she debuted it “Secret Wars” back in the 80’s, when I was heavily reading Marvel Comics.
On a potentially positive note we finally get the Henry Cavill spy thriller “Argylle“, though a word of caution on that one: I’m pretty sure that is a bait and switch. The trailer only shows Cavill playing an in world, fictional version of the character and as the trailer reaches the point of introducing the “Real” Argylle…. it ends. Yeah, it’s totally not going to be Henry. My guess is that the author of the fictional in world books that is central to the story is the real Argylle, in what would effectively turn the story into a “Long Kiss Goodnight” remake. This may or may not cause a backlash depending on if the movie is actually any good! Fortunately the trailer did look action packed and fun, so regardless of who the real Argylle is, it may be entertaining.
Filling out the rest of February are some real wild cards. Probably the most notable is Ethan Coen’s “Drive Away Dolls“. The trailer looked stylish but I honestly couldn’t tell much else about it. Then there’s the action movie “Land of Bad“, which looks like a typical soldiers in action type movie but those can sometimes be very good, so we’ll see. Finally, there is another comedy horror, “Lisa Frankenstein“, the plot is somewhat similar in basic concept to horror cult classic “May”, but with the comedy dial turned up to eleven. Lisa, like may is trying to construct her perfect man, but this time she starts with a re-animated corpse and is basically trying to replace bits of it to make it less… dead. Not sure if it will work in practice, but concepts like this are always a fine line between hilarious and terrible.
March.
March is where things really get interesting in 2024, with a number of highly anticipated movies. This includes the delayed “Dune Part II” finishing off Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s first Dune novel. The trailer for this looks superb and it may be the safest bet of the year for quality. The month also sees a fourth Kung Fu Panda movie, but more interesting for me is “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire“, the fourth canonical Ghostbusters movie and direct sequel to “Afterlife”. The movie sees the franchise return to New York and there is more than a chill in the air. The remaining OG-Busters return once more, though it is unknown how large their roles are this time. My guess is you won’t see much of Venkman in this.
We also get a reboot of “The Fall Guy“, an 80’s TV series now turned into a movie. There seems to be little in common between this movie and the series, but the trailer did look pretty good. Perhaps this will be the new “Equalizer”. A potential movie to look out for in March is Bong Joon-ho’s science fiction adaptation “Mickey 17“. I don’t know the source material (The novel “Mickey7”), but the synopsis sounds interesting and this is an Oscar winning director with a strong list of science fiction and horror movies to his name. The very capable Robert Pattinson takes the lead roll in the movie, so there is a lot of potential. Capping off March is a pair of trope subersions with Netflix’s take on the fairy tale movie “Damsel” and the imaginary friends gone bad horror “Imaginary”. The latter of those is the first of two movies about imaginary friends this year.
Second Quarter.
The second quarter of 2024 features a run of big budget action based movies and a fair amount of horror along with a lot of franchise returns. In all (Of the movies listed), nine are either franchise sequels, prequels, spin-offs or reboots and only six are original films, four of which are horrors. Here’s the list:
April
NEW ADDITION: Monkey Man (Action) – April 5th
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire – April 12 (Action/Kaiju)
The First Omen – April 12 (Horror)
Abducting Abigail – April 19 (Horror)
NEW ADDITION: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – April 19th (Action)
Civil War – April 26 (Action/Thriller)
May
Horrorscope – May 10 (Horror)
If – May 17 (Horror
Furiosa – May 24, 2024
Garfield – May 24, 2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – May 24, 2024
June
The Watchers – June 7, 2024 (Horror)
Ballerina – June 7
Bad Boys 4 – Jun 14
Inside Out 2 – June 14, 2024
A Quiet Place: Day One – June 28
Horizon: An American Saga (Pt 1) – June 28
April
Already controversial film “Civil War” hit’s theatres April 26th. Hard not to feel that movie is cynically cashing in on extreme tensions across the US in what is sure to be the most controversial election of all time. Fortunately even in the trailer they make it clear the film is pure fantasy since it has California teaming up with Texas! April also gives us a new entry in the “Monsterverse” franchise, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” this time it’s a full on Godzilla and King Kong team up movie and it remains to be seen if they can actually make this work. Certainly the scene of Godzilla running in the trailer was… strange. After the success of the Japanese Godzilla Minus One in 2023, it’s uncertain whether the audiences are still on board with a heroic running Godzilla teaming up with a heroic Kong.
For horror we have an ill advised old franchise prequel “The First Omen“, which just to be a little more confusing is a prequel to the reboot Omen film from 2006 and not the one from 1976. yes they made a prequel to the film that has a 5.5 (62k votes) on imdb rather than the one with a 7.5 (129k votes). Go figure. Though a prequel to the ’76 film would basically just be Rosemary’s baby. All feels a bit pointless to me, but maybe it’ll be a surprise hit. April also sees the release of Universal monster thriller “Abducting Abigail“, a movie little seems to be known about, but seems to be about people kidnapping someone that is actually a monster.
UPDATE: Two new movies have been added to the slate in April that are worth mentioning, both are action films. First is “Monkey Man” from Universal, released April 5th and from the looks of the excellent trailer is a action film/superhero origin movie. That is followed by Guy Ritchies latest movie “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” with Henry Cavill. Ritchies output last year was nothing short of spectacular so I expect good things here as well. It seems April just got kicked up a notch!
May
May brings more questionable sequels with the first Mad Max film without Mad Max in: “Furiosa“. It’s also the first Max franchise movie to feature extremely heavy CGI and it was very noticeable in the trailer (And not in a good way). One sequel that actually looks decent though is “Kingdom of the Planet of the Ape“. Honestly it could go either way, but the trailer was promising. May also brings “The Strangers: Chapter 1“, a prequel to a home invasion film I wasn’t particularly impressed with. In my review of “The Strangers” the only positive I had about it was a surprisingly good performance by Liv Tyler. Another horror out in May is the deliberately misspelled “Horrorscope” about people having their fortunes read and then dying in related ways to that fortune. Straight forward gimmick; we’ll see how it lands.
May sees Garfield back on the big screen, now with Chris Pratt voicing the lasagna loving feline. The new film is called “The Garfield Movie” not to be confused with “Garfield: The Movie” from 2004. June also features a potentially big animated feature with “Inside Out 2“, though Disney doesn’t have the best track record with animation in recent years, so remains to be seen if it will be as much of a success as the original film. Disney can’t claim genre fatigue on their animation since everyone else seems to be doing well in that department. One movie that I think may be a hit this year (One of two for Ryan Reynolds), is “IF“, this years second movie about imaginary friends. These are good imaginary friends though, so don’t expect them to murder anyone. This is pure fantasy/comedy and the trailer looked great.
June
As we roll into the summer we get a pair of franchise action movies with the fourth installment of Michael Bay’s Bad Boys franchise “Bad Boys 4“. Not much is known about that one right now, so there is a chance it’ll get delayed. Before that though we get “Ballerina” a John Wick spin off set between the third and fourth movie of that franchise. The movie does include Keanu Reeves reprising his role, but the actual lead is Ana de Armas. It’s unknown how much of a role Wick will have in it. The third movie vying to be an early summer hit is Pixar’s “Inside Out 2“. While the original was a big hit, we all know how things are going for Disney right now and this isn’t Toy Story. It seems unlike “Anxiety” will be as popular a character as “Joy” was.
On the horror side of things June brings “The Watchers“, the directorial debut of Ishana Shyamalan, M. Night’s daughter. Hopefully she isn’t also obsessed with building movies around a single twist. The big horror movie of June though is the Quiet Place prequel “A Quiet Place: Day One“. If you read my review of the previous movie you’ll know I really liked the prequel section and was indifferent to the rest, so I’m actually on board with this one. Stepping away from horror, the final movie of note in June is Kevin Costner’s latest Western Epic “Horizon: An American Saga“. This is a self funded two part movie with the second due out in august. The total run time is apparently eleven hours, though it was originally meant to be four movies and seems to now be just two. The final length remains to be seen… But probably not by me!
End of Part One
Part two launches right into the summer holiday season and beyond. Right now its pretty barren terrain thanks to last years writers strike. They delayed a lot of films due out last year to make sure they had some content, but that could only stretch it so far. Also the end half of the year is where films are more likely to be delayed again, so it is a lot more speculative. Suffice to say part two will be shorter! Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope it’s given you a few films to look forward to.
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