It's high time I caught up with the influx of new trailers for next year's biggest box office hopefuls, which have been showing up regularly throughout the fall. I've chosen to highlight a mix of mainstream spring and summer titles in this post, though by far the best trailer I've seen in recent months has been the one for Wes Anderson's latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel. It's so delightfully Wes Anderson-y, I really have little else to say about it. But the trailers linked below leave bigger question marks, so let's get started. All links below lead to Trailer Addict.
The Amazing Spider-man 2 - I didn't see the first "Amazing Spider-man" back in 2012, but the new teaser for the sequel is making a great sales pitch. It's got Emma Stone! And Dane DeHaan as a much more interesting-looking Harry Osborne! New villains Rhino and Electro are on screen far too briefly to make much of an impression, but the further delving into Peter Parker's family legacy looks very promising. I might just skip the previous movie and watch this one next.
X-Men Days of Future Past - Dark, somber, and hardly shows anything, but it does nicely present the fundamentals of the premise: time travel, different versions of familiar characters meeting, and hints of the apocalyptic future they're all trying to avoid. Also, there's the fun viral video The Bent Bullet currently in circulation, which suggests Magneto killed JFK in the films' alternate history. Fox's marketing has certainly improved this time out. Let's hope they deliver on the movie too.
Boxtrolls - This one doesn't reach theaters until September, but the marketing has been well underway for months. I love the approach here, showing off LAIKA's painstaking behind-the-scenes efforts to create an animated stop-motion world inhabited by friendly, funny trolls who live in boxes, and have adopted the film's human hero into their ranks. LAIKA's track record has been fantastic so far, with "Coraline" and "Paranorman," so "Boxtrolls" has a spot very high on my to-see list.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Humorous banter establishes that we're in the Marvel universe, but it quickly gives way to a more coldly militaristic thriller narrative where Robert Redford makes sinister, morally complicated pronouncements. It'll be interesting to see the patriotic Cap grapple with the dark side of the modern military industrial complex. I have some serious doubts about the villain though, who just looks silly in the more realistic environs.
Noah - The Biblical epic is back! Well, at least that's what Paramount is hoping for with Darren Aronofsky's latest, an ambitious, big-budget take on the Noah's Ark story that promises lots of IMAX-worthy spectacle. There have been reports of the filmmaker and studio battling over final cut of the film, and it's easy to see why. With the caliber of the talent involved," Noah" looks like it could be a big crowd-pleasing event picture, but Aronofsky's work tends to skew more challenging and unorthodox.
Maleficent - It's far too early to say if Disney's attempt to tell "Sleeping Beauty" from the villain's point of view is going to be successful, but the teaser sells us on two key points. One, that Elle Fanning makes for a lovely Disney princess, and two, that Angelina Jolie is picture perfect as Maleficent. Now, if those two are going to get a move that actually makes use of that potential is the real question. The first time director gives me pause, but hey! Paul Dini co-wrote the script!
Jupiter Ascending - The Wachowskis are back with another ambitious-looking science fiction parable, this time about some kind of interstellar soldier played by Channing Tatum in elf ears protecting Mila Kunis, who is some kind of secret royal MacGuffin. It's hard to work out the details from the trailer, but the whole thing looks spectacularly campy and weird and full of good possibilities. This one may turn out to be a mess, but I expect that it'll at least be an interesting mess.
Godzilla - Yep, the big guy is back for more monster mayhem. This teaser was just released today, and while it doesn't show much of Godzilla himself (Herself? Itself?), the movie already looks considerably better than the last attempt to revive the "Godzilla" franchise back in 1998. I think this is going to be a lot of silly fun, but then I'm a fan of kaiju and giant monsters. I don't know how well the new "Godzilla" is going to go over with mainstream audiences, especially after the performance of "Pacific Rim" last year.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 - And finally, a brief reminder of this teaser, which premiered over the summer. I like that it doesn't say a thing about story or plot, but just gives you a glimpse of Hiccup and Toothless doing what they do best. It's only at the very end that they clue you in that there have been some changes since we saw the pair last. This is going to be the film to beat this summer, and I can't wait to see it.
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