For some people, the summer months mean beaches and long days outdoors. For Den of Geek readers, the summer means staying inside air conditioned movie theaters and watching big budget spectacles! And boy, does summer 2025 have spectacles. But if superheroes and dinosaurs aren’t your bag, you don’t have to skip cinemas altogether this season. […]
The post Summer Movie Preview 2025: From Superman to Fantastic Four and Beyond appeared first on Den of Geek.
For some people, the summer months mean beaches and long days outdoors. For Den of Geek readers, the summer means staying inside air conditioned movie theaters and watching big budget spectacles! And boy, does summer 2025 have spectacles. But if superheroes and dinosaurs aren’t your bag, you don’t have to skip cinemas altogether this season. Everything from comedy revivals to existential horrors will be hitting screens over the next couple of months, promising cool entertainment for all. And we got it all here for your viewing pleasure.
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Another Simple Favor
May 1
Paul Feig continues to be one of the more mercurial figures in Hollywood. He’s directed or co-created some excellent stuff, including Freaks & Geeks, Spy, and the deeply underrated Last Christmas. But he’s also behind absolute stinkers such as The Heat and Jackpot!, making for a checkered filmography.
This year, Feig returns to one of his more successful projects with the sequel Another Simple Favor. Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick reprise their roles as the stylish, suspicious rivals Emily Nelson and Stephanie Smothers. This time, the murder that binds them occurs in Capri, Italy, promising even more magazine-spread sophistication than the first movie.
Thunderbolts*
May 2
Who can say what kind of movie Thunderbolts* will be? It follows Captain America: Brave New World, a movie that seemed to embarrass even Marvel, and precedes the highly-anticipated The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Throw in a delayed production process that lost Steven Yeun and Ayo Edebiri, replaced by Lewis Pullman and Geraldine Viswanathan, and the tea leaves might be ambiguous.
But maybe that misfit status will work in the film’s favor. Thunderbolts* walks the same path as Suicide Squad and this year’s Star Trek: Section 31 as a story about people who don’t belong together forming a team. Unlike those dismal films, however, Thunderbolts* seems to understand its ragtag place, with marketing leaning heavily on the mountains of charisma that Florence Pugh and David Harbour bring, alongside Sebastian Stan’s beloved Winter Soldier.
The Surfer
May 2
By this point, Nicolas Cage has completed his purgation from being ironically loved by the internet to actually loved by the internet, to finally recognized (again) as one of the most interesting working actors in cinema. So even the the ad campaign for The Surfer has been as spartan as its title, we can’t help but be intrigued.
Directed by Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan (Vivarium, Nocebo) and written by Thomas Martin, The Surfer features Cage as a man who brings his son to surf an Australian beach he loved in his youth only to be menaced by local roughs. That sounds a lot like Cage’s recent masterpiece Pig, and some reviewers have compared it to the Aussie New Wave classic Wake in Fright, making The Surfer one of the more compelling entries on this list.
Friendship
May 9
Speaking of internet faves, Friendship stars Tim Robinson as a bored suburbanite who makes fast friends with a new neighbor played by Paul Rudd. Feeling that the bond has restored his lost youth, Robinson’s character soon becomes an obsessive and even destructive force in his neighbor’s life while alienating himself from his wife (Kate Mara).
To anyone familiar with I Think You Should Leave, that description fills the mind with images of slicked back hair and sloppy steaks, which should both excite and worry us. Robinson’s humor works great in five-minute sketches, but will that translate to feature length? Fortunately, Robinson and Rudd have Our Flag Means Death and PEN15‘s Andrew DeYoung onboard to direct.
Final Destination: Bloodlines
May 16
The Final Destination franchise has tried to close itself out twice, first with 2009’s awful The Final Destination and again in 2011’s excellent Final Destination 5. But Death’s work is never complete, so it’s fitting that a new entry would appear with Final Destination: Bloodlines.
To be honest, Bloodlines has some stiff competition, not only because it comes more than a decade after the last and best entry, but also because Oz Perkins already gave us a glorious pseudo-Destination this year with The Monkey. Directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein don’t exactly build the most confidence, as they won acclaim for their work on Disney XD shows. But Bloodlines does give us one last look at the late, great Tony Todd as mortician William Bludsworth, so we will be there on day one.
Hurry Up Tomorrow
May 14
On the heels of Smile 2 and Opus comes another horror movie about the plight of being an internationally beloved pop star. Based on his own album, Hurry Up Tomorrow stars Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, as a fictionalized version of himself who suffers a paranoid breakdown.
For those who only know The Weeknd from gifs, Hurry Up Tomorrow also stars Jenna Ortega as the pop star’s girlfriend and Barry Keoghan as a mysterious stranger. For cinephiles, the most compelling name on the poster is that of Trey Edward Shults, who broke out with the world’s scariest Thanksgiving movie Krisha and then followed it up with highly divisive movies It Comes at Night and Waves. Judging by Hurry Up Tomorrow‘s trailer, Shults has no intention of becoming predictable now.
Lilo & Stitch
May 23
Having already desecrated its classic and renaissance era in order to mine for ugly remakes that can be shoved into theaters, Disney turns to its oddball post-renaissance period for its latest live-action rehash. Are they remaking Brother Bear or Home on the Range, bad movies that might be improved by a second draft? Of course not! They’re remaking the good ones because those have name recognition!
Lilo & Stitch seems to repeat the exact same beats of the 2002 movie in which a fuzzy but dangerous alien (Chris Sanders) crash lands on Hawaii and befriends a lonely orphaned girl (Maia Kealoha) and her guardian big sister (Sydney Agudong). The one sliver of hope comes in the fact that Lilo & Stitch 2025 is directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, who made the delightful Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. Then again, if Camp is successful and Lilo & Stitch does well, then we’re bound to see live-action version of The Emperor’s New Groove, and no one wants that.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
May 23
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning promises to do what Owen Davian, Solomon Lane, and Jim Phelps could never accomplish: It will bring a stop to Ethan Hunt. Maybe. Through sure force of will and madness, Tom Cruise has transformed the Mission: Impossible franchise from a TV series best known for its theme song into a big-budget stunt spectacular in which we flock to see him risk his life for our amusement. But time comes even for Cruise, so Final Reckoning is being marketed as Hunt’s last outing.
At least he’s going out with a bang. Once again directed by Christopher McQuarrie, The Final Reckoning reveals the mastermind behind the rogue AI known as the Entity as someone with ties to the first film. Along the way, he’ll get help from his team, including mainstays played by Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg, as well as newer additions played by Hayley Atwell, Vanessa Kirby, and Pom Klementieff. Also, Tom Cruise will hang off a plane, which is what we’re really here to see.
Fear Street: Prom Queen
May 23
If you’re over the age of 25, you may only know Fear Street as the YA novels written by Goosebumps author R.L. Stein. However, the three Fear Street movies released by Netflix have been horror favorites of Gen Z, thanks to viral videos shared online. Fear Street: Prom Queen breaks from the trilogy format of the first three movies for a standalone story about scary things occurring at a 1988 prom queen race. Matt Palmer steps in for departing director Leigh Janiak, but as long as he can bring the gory thrills, Zoomers are sure to love it.
Fountain of Youth
May 23
English director Guy Ritchie continues to broaden his offerings with the adventure tale Fountain of Youth. Penned by veteran screenwriter James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, The Amazing Spider-Man), Fountain of Youth stars John Krasinski and Natalie Portman as siblings searching for the titular water source. They’re joined by a gaggle of character actors like Domhnall Gleeson, Eiza Gonzalez, and Stanley Tucci. That all sounds like a throwback good time to at least the heyday of National Treasure and Tomb Raider if not Indiana Jones. But one has to wonder if Fountain of Youth will be hampered by the fact that it’s straight to Apple TV+, dulling the sense of scale that adventure tales usually need.
Karate Kid: Legends
May 30
Karate Kid: Legends offers a rarity even in this age of IP-first filmmaking, a legacy sequel combined with a remake. Legends sees original Karate Kid Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) team with Kung Fu master Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) of the 2010 remake to train newcomer Li Fong (Ben Wang).
It’s a strange maneuver on Sony’s part, pivoting away from the very popular Karate Kid legacy series Cobra Kai, which recently ended its six season run on Netflix, and toward the lesser-loved 2010 remake. Will Legends uncover a hidden trove of fans nostalgic for the 2010 movie? Or is it time to finally bring back Hilary Swank from The Next Karate Kid? We’ll find out this summer.
The Phoenician Scheme
May 30, June 6 (wide)
Although initially panned upon its release in 2005, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou has been reclaimed as on of Wes Anderson‘s best movies (including by us!). So it’s good to see Anderson take another swing at the action genre with The Phoenician Scheme.
That said, The Phoenician Scheme does feel slightly different from most of Anderson’s movies, mostly because he’s shaking up his usual stable of players. Benicio del Toro, who had only previously worked with Anderson on The French Dispatch, takes the lead as businessman Zsa-zsa Korda, alongside new additions Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, and Riz Ahmed. Of course familiar faces Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, and Scarlett Johansson are on hand, as is Anderson’s impeccable aesthetic.
Bring Her Back
May 30
Aussie twins Danny and Michael Philippou made the jump from YouTube to indie cult status with 2022’s Talk To Me. They’re ready to ride that momentum with their follow-up Bring Her Back, once again distributed by A24. Bring Her Back follows a recently orphaned brother and sister who come to the home of a foster mother played by Sally Hawkins, who already cares for a troubled boy who may have mystical powers. Judging by Bring Her Back‘s trailer, the Philippou brothers plan a movie just as troubling and intense as their debut.
From the World of John Wick: Ballerina
June 6
John Wick: Chapter 4 seemed to bring an end to the Baba Yaga, but you can’t keep a financially successful franchise down. Thus comes Ana de Armas in From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, complete with an appropriately ostentatious title. Even if you don’t think the John Wick series needed a movie that isn’t about John Wick, Ballerina has a few things in its favor. First, the movie sees the return of not just Reeves’ titular killer (this film is a side-quel set simultaneously during the events of Chapter 3 and 4), but also Ian McShane as Winston and Lance Reddick in his final performance as Charon. The “directed by” credit for Len Wiseman doesn’t inspire much hope, but behind-the-scenes reports indicate that original series director Chad Stahelski shot some of the fight scenes and spearheaded the reshoots. So maybe Ballerina‘s worth checking out after all.
The Life of Chuck
June 6
For the past few years, Mike Flanagan has established himself as one of the most interesting television creators working today. Although his last movie Doctor Sleep has its fans, supporters explicitly cite the Director’s Cut as the preferred version, arguing that the extended run time better suits the dazzling monologues Flanagan writes.
So we greet Flanagan’s return to the big screen with a bit of trepidation. Yes, he’s adapting Stephen King once again, and yes, he has most of his familiar ensemble in tow, including Kate Siegel, Rahul Kohli, Mark Hamill, and Carl Lumbly, alongside Tom Hiddleston stepping out of the MCU for a minute. But The Life of Chuck clocks in at under two hours, which seems like far too little time for these brilliant actors to deliver Flanagan’s lines about fate, faith, and the meaning of life. However, the buzz the film has generated out of TIFF, where it won the audience award and threw Oscar prognosticators’ end-of-year predictions into chaos (since this is a June 2025 release) fills us with curiosity.
How to Train Your Dragon (June 13)
The live-action Disney remakes can at least claim that they’re reimagining beloved classics. Great as the original How to Train Your Dragon, it’s only 15 years old. Worse, the remake seems to be using the exact same plot, the exact same CG designs of the dragons, and even the exact same Gerard Butler to play grumpy father Stoick the Vast. Why so many similarities? Because the remake is directed by the same guy who dreamed up the original, Dean DeBlois.
Still, maybe there’s some magic to be found in the new cast, which includes The Black Phone‘s Mason Thames as Hiccup and The Last of Us‘s Nico Parker as Astrid. If they can provide just enough energy, and if DeBlois can recapture some of the original’s magic he brought to the animated trilogy, then How to Train Your Dragon might stand on its own.
Materialists
June 13
Materialists may not be getting the same push as the summer’s superhero and remake entries, but it’s easily one of the more exciting movies coming soon. First, there’s the buzzy cast, including Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans. Then there’s the director Celine Song, making her follow-up to 2023’s Past Lives. Finally, there’s the design of the poster, which finds the central trio doing catalogue poses in an image surrounded by a thick white border.
Everything about Materialists recalls the adult romantic comedies of the ’80s and ’90s, especially its plot. Johnson plays a high-powered matchmaker who, against her better judgment, gets caught in a triangle. If it has even an ounce of the verve of Broadcast News and half the humanity of Past Lives, Materialists will be a favorite long after summer’s end.
Echo Valley
June 13
Speaking of big names in a low-stakes picture, Mare of Eastown creator Brad Ingelsby returns to the features with Echo Valley for Apple TV+. Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney play a mother and daughter who reunite after a tragedy. Sweeney may have broken out with the flashy series Euphoria, but Echo Valley may be another chance to show off the acting chops witnessed in Reality. As seen in his scripts for Mare of Eastown, The Way Back, and Out of the Furnace, Ingelsby understands the nuances of small town life, giving Sweeney plenty of room to develop a complex character.
28 Years Later
June 20
It’s only been 23 years since director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland un-nevered the world with their zombie thriller 28 Days Later, but we’re willing the fudge the math to get the pair together again. As its title suggests, 28 Years Later takes place more than a quarter century after a rage virus ravaged England. Despite the new status quo, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his son Spike (Alfie Williams) must leave their island village to face the monsters.
Back in 2002, before George Romero’s return to the genre and all of The Walking Dead, zombies felt fresh and digital photography seemed innovative. Both the technology and the genre have lost some of their bite today. but if there’s anyone who can reanimate the dead forms, it’s Boyle and Garland. We’ll see if 28 Years Later proves worth the wait.
Elio
June 20
Even though Pixar isn’t the surefire studio it once was, a new release still deserves our attention, especially when the trio of directors includes Turning Red‘s Domee Shi and Coco‘s Adrian Molina. Both helmers of two of the best recent Pixar movies, Shi and Molina are joined by Madeline Sharafian, making her feature debut.
Elio follows the titular outer-space nerd (Yonas Kibreab) as he’s somehow selected o represent humanity in an intergalactic council. If all goes well, Elio will learn about life while going through some wacky hijinks, and kids and adults alike will be moved to tears.
M3GAN 2.0
June 27
You can’t keep a viral sensation down, so it’s no surprise to see Blumhouse‘s pre-teen murder-bot make her return for M3GAN 2.0. Taking a page out of the Terminator 2 handbook, M3GAN 2.0 sees the reconstituted robot (voiced by Jenna Davis and performed by Amie Donald) doing battle with an upgraded successor called Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno).
Allison Williams is back as M3GAN’s inventor as is Violet McGraw as her charge/victim. James Wan produces again, as does original co-writer Akela Cooper and director Gerard Johnstone scripting. The question is whether this one will be as heavy on the meme-ready action?
F1
June 27
Most movie fans point to baseball and boxing as the most cinematic of sports, but racing is a pretty close third. So the prospect of seeing Brad Pitt drive fast cars is enough to get butts in seats for F1, especially with direction by Joseph Kosinski of Tron: Legacy and Top Gun: Maverick.
F1 has a well-worn sports plot, with Pitt playing a driver whose career ended with a crash decades ago but is now brought back to mentor a promising up-and-comer (Damson Idris). But racing’s all about improvisations within a set track, and if Kosinski can shoot cars like he shot fighter jets, then no one will care about familiar plot beats.
Jurassic World: Rebirth
July 2
Perhaps the greatest testament to the power of the original Jurassic Park is how Steven Spielberg‘s movie still inspires wonder no matter how many lackluster sequels follow. That said, Jurassic World: Rebirth does have a harder road to hoe, given that it comes off of the dismal Jurassic World Dominion (aka, the one with more locusts than dinosaurs).
Rebirth hopes to correct course by going back to the original. Not only is the trailer full of callbacks to the first movie, but it even boasts a script by David Koepp, screenwriter of the 1993 film. Furthermore, Rebirth director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Rogue One) seems to be aiming for old-school adventure in which a scientist (Jonathan Bailey) hires two mercenaries (Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali) to help him find dino genetics that could lead to pharmaceutical breakthroughs. Not exactly cutting edge in plot, but, honestly, as long as Jurassic World: Rebirth has cool dinos eating some folks in cool ways, we’ll be there.
The Old Guard 2
July 2
It’s been five years since Netflix released The Old Guard, an excellent fantasy action film based on the comic book by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández. In the passing years, The Old Guard hasn’t quite become the cult sensation that it deserves to be, but the story is worthy of continuing, especially if new director Victoria Mahoney can match the mixture of action and character depth established by her predecessor Gina Prince-Bythewood.
The Old Guard 2 brings back Charlize Theron as Andromache of Scythia, aka Andy, the leader of a group of near-immortals who travel the world doing good. She’s joined by newest recruit Nile Freeman (KiKi Layne) and her reliable teammates, all of whom she’ll need to counter a vengeful former lover (Vân Veronica Ngô), who spent the past centuries trapped in an underwater grave.
Superman
July 11
This late in the cycle of superhero movies, we all believe a man can fly. What remains an open questions is if Warner Bros. can make a Superman film as inspirational as the 1978 classic with that tagline in 2025. Hiring true genre aficanado James Gunn seemed like a great start, but can the guy who cut his teeth with Troma, and gleefully slaughtered Z-listers in The Suicide Squad, be the one to pull it off?
Yet with each new look at Superman, our belief grows. Rachel Brosnahan is pitch-perfect casting for Lois Lane and David Corenswet seems to embody the Clark Kent/Superman divide. After The Great and The Menu, Nicholas Hoult has become the ideal person to play the megalomaniacal Lex Luthor. Throw in a compelling supporting cast with inspired choices, including Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner and Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, and its getting easier to believe every minute.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
July 18
As the Scream franchise burns up the goodwill its relaunch earned with a series of unforced errors, its kid sister rises to take its place. The 2025 version of I Know What You Did Last Summer follows a group of attractive young people who get chased around a seaside town by a killer fisherman with a hook hand, all penance for some secret crime committed the previous year… just like in the 1997 film.
To its credit, the I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 seems to recognize the improbability of its premise and leans into it. The trailer not only highlights the pretty new set of victims, led by Glass Onion’s Madelyn Cline, but also originals Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt, both of whom deliver some self-aware dialogue. If director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) can nail the balance of metatextual references and nasty slasher kills, Scream may indeed become the stuff of forgotten summers.
Eddington
July 18
Ari Aster made his name by shocking viewers: first with the deeply unsettling Hereditary and then with the still-beguiling Midsommar, which drove people back to his inexplicable short films, before completely baffling everyone with his comic odyssey Beau Is Afraid.
All of that’s a long way of saying that we have no idea what to expect from his latest entry, Eddington. A teaser trailer suggests that Aster’s taking a more satirical edge, as it shows a man played by Joaquin Phoenix scrolling to his phone to see ripped-from-the-headlines videos about COVID, public shaming, and MAGA protests, and here performed by actors as adored as Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone. But that sounds way too easy for a filmmaker like Aster, so prepare for Eddington to shock you in ways you could never foresee.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
July 25
Together with Superman, The Fantastic Four: First Steps seeks to revitalize the superhero movie genre with a dose of bright-eyed optimism. And like its cousin over at the Distinguished Competition side of the street, First Steps has to cleanse public memory of some pretty terrible predecessors. It’s taking the right steps with its cast, which includes favorites Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the central quartet.
Adding to the appeal is the retro-futuristic aesthetic, brought to life by WandaVision’s Matt Shakman. However, that does raise questions about First Steps’ placement in the larger Marvel Universe. Will the world-devourer Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his herald Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) destroy this world, immediately tarnishing Marvel’s brightly-hued new entries? We’ll have to wait for the post-credits to know for sure.
Happy Gilmore 2
July 25
Forget I Know What You Did Last Summer. 2025’s most surprising ‘90s come back belongs to hockey player-turned-golfer Happy Gilmore who comes to Netflix with a sequel 29 years in the making. Adam Sandler reteams with original writer Tim Herlihy for the latest in Happy’s shenanigans.
Happy Gilmore 2 finds Happy returning to the green for some reason. But let’s be honest, the reason doesn’t matter. Adam Sandler movies are mostly about watching him have fun with his friends, and that’s exactly what Happy Gilmore 2 promises, complete with appearances by Julie Bowen, Christopher McDonald, and Ben Stiller, all reprising their characters from the first movie, along with lots of golfer cameos.
The Bad Guys 2
August 1
Based on the popular line of children’s illustrated novels, The Bad Guys stars Sam Rockwell as Mr. Wolf, the leader of a group of carnivores/criminals who seek to rehabilitate their image. Thanks to its solid voice acting from Rockwell and co-stars, including Marc Maron and Awkwafina, and its use of the animation techniques pioneered by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Bad Guys was a surprise hit in 2022.
The sequel hopes to continue that success, bringing back all of the principle cast, director Pierre Perifel, and the same animation engine. Following the “bigger is better” approach to sequels, The Bad Guys 2 introduces the Bad Girls, lady animals voiced by the likes of Danielle Brooks and Natasha Lyonne. As long as it can provide the zany energy that kids liked about the first film, The Bad Guys are sure to do good once again at the box office.
The Naked Gun
August 1
On paper the long-in-development remake of The Naked Gun sounds like a disaster. Who today has the same dry humor of the late, great Leslie Nielsen? Who has the same eye for parodic detail as the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrams? Heck, does our current world of non-stop police procedurals have anything like M Squad, the forgotten show that inspired The Naked Gun’s predecessor, Police Squad?
Most of those concerns fall away when we see the first teaser for The Naked Gun 2025. Directed by the Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaffer, The Naked Gun has an inspired pick in Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr., leader of a new version of Police Squad, and he’s joined by Paul Walter Hauser as Ed Hocken Jr. and Moses Jones as Nordberg Jr. Just reading that sentence boosts confidence that, somehow, Schaffer and company have figured out how to replicate the ZAZ humor for today’s audiences.
Freakier Friday
August 8
The train of long-in-the-making sequels continues with Freakier Friday, a continuation of the 2003 Disney remake with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. In the 2003 version, mother and daughter Tess and Anna Coleman swapped bodies, leading to good-hearted shenanigans and family bonding. The sequel doubles up with a four-way swap, bringing a daughter and step-daughter (Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons, respectively) into the mix.
Judging by the trailer, director Nisha Ganatra (Late Night, The High Note) knows exactly what fans expect from this outing and plans to give it to them. A game Curtis and Lohan throw themselves into their age-inappropriate roles and the quadruple swap changes things up just enough. Throw familiar faces such as Chad Michael Murray and Rosalind Chao from the first movie and add Manny Jacinto as a new love interest, and Freakier Friday’s set to be a warm reunion for 2000s kids ready for some nostalgia.
Weapons
August 8
Weapons director Zach Cregger isn’t a new name, having performed for years in the sketch group The Whitest Kids U’ Know and even co-directed Miss March with late co-star Trevor Moore. But Cregger proved we didn’t really know him at all with his solo director debut, the 2022 shocker Barbarian.
Weapons seeks to surprise us all over again, beginning with a cryptic ad campaign of blurry surveillance footage. Weapons presents itself as a missing persons story, dealing with the mass exodus of children from a suburban neighborhood. But if Barbarian is any indication, that premise just starts the upsetting story that Cregger wants to tell.
Nobody 2
August 15
No one watching Mr. Show in its heyday could have predicted that Bob Odenkirk would have gone from guy who shouts obscenities in sketch comedies to beloved dad who warmly greets his little women. Even more shocking was Odenkirk’s turn to action hero in 2021’s Nobody, in which he played a put-upon suburbanite who recovers his international assassin skills after an attack on his family. If that sounds similar to John Wick, well, it is written by Derek Kolstad, who co-created the Keanu Reeves character.
Nobody 2 picks up where the first movie left off, with Odenkirk’s Hutch Mansell and his FBI agent father David (Christopher Lloyd) trying to return to their old lives after the latter’s night of chaos. This time around, Kolstad shares a writing credit with three others (including Odenkirk), but Timo Tjahjanto (who co-directed the “Safe Haven” segment of V/H/S/ 2 with Gareth Evans) steps into direct.
Eden
August 22
By this point, you know what to expect from a Ron Howard movie: something that’s solidly well-made or—occasionally—a project that unintentionally unleashes nightmares upon the country, as with 2020’s Hillbilly Elegy. We’re hoping for more of the former with Eden, starring Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas, and Sydney Sweeney.
Based on a true story, Eden follows two German scientists (Law and Kirby) as they flee their home country in 1929 to settle on Floreana Island in the Galápagos. Soon others follow, creating trouble in their apparent paradise. Will the story of Europeans colonizing Latin American land provide entertainment in the year 2025 or will Howard’s style of middlebrow blockbusters be rejected by modern audiences? We’ll see soon enough.
Caught Stealing
August 29
Darren Aronofsky movies aren’t always good, but they are always interesting, so we can’t help but look with anticipation toward Caught Stealing. Working from a script by author Charlie Huston, Caught Stealing stars Austin Butler as a baseball player who descends into the criminal underworld of 1990s New York. While he’s made some out-there fantasias such as The Fountain and mother!, Aronofsky’s biggest hits tend to be gritty tales such as Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, and The Wrestler. Huston’s writing seems to tend toward the more realistic side with hints of surrealism, which suits Aronofsky’s style just fine.
The Toxic Avenger
August 29
Video store kids of the ‘80s and ‘90s all know about Toxie, the breakout hero and mascot of Troma Entertainment. Does that name mean anything today? After all, Troma is very much a product of the VHS era when the demand for home video made a reliable market for their low-budget movies, designed to nothing more than offend moral and aesthetic taste. The Toxic Avenger from 1984 brought Troma and Toxie to the masses, but when kids today have instant access to the worst humanity has to offer, what can Troma do?
We’ll find out when the remake of The Toxic Avenger finally hits theaters this summer. Originally debuting at Fantastic Fest in 2023, The Toxic Avenger stars Peter Dinklage as janitor Winston Gooze, transformed into the titular anti-hero after a bullying accident. But the most promising part of this update is behind the camera, as actor Macon Blair, a regular of Jeremy Saulnier’s troupe and the director of I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, writes and directs.
The Roses
August 29
Closing out a summer full of surprising sequels and remakes is the most unlikely of them all. Directed by Jay Roach and written by Tony McNamara, The Roses is based on the 1981 novel The War of the Roses by Warren Adler, which was previously adapted into a 1989 movie starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito. In this version, Olivia Coleman and Benedict Cumberbatch play a successful, upper-class couple who turn destructive as they head toward divorce.
Unlike some others on this list, The Roses feels like exactly the type of movie that needs a refresh in 2025. Movies for adults have taken a backseat to the big-budget PG-13 fair of the past two decades, and we’re worse off for it. A comedy about grown ups, even grown up behaving like children, might be exactly the palate cleanser we need as we head into the awards-friendly autumn.
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