26 films to look forward to in 2020
From our friends at Empire magazine!
Last updated 24th Dec 2019
Superheroes have died, new underdogs have risen, and Britain still hasn't left the EU. 2019 is nearly behind us, and with 2020 not so far away, we're looking forward to a brand new year bursting with new movies to anticipate.
From major literary adaptations to foreign-language favourites expected to infiltrate the Oscars and a whole new phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to prepare for, 2020 promises bold and wildly varied treasures. Read on for the breakdown.
1917
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: George McKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth
Sam Mendes' WWI epic follows two young British soldiers given a seemingly impossible mission: cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers. Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins present, incredibly, the entire narrative as if filmed in a single take.
Release date: 10th January 2020
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
Director: Cathy Yan
Starring: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Ewan McGregor
Robbie returns as Suicide Squad's unhinged troublemaker Harleen Quinzell (AKA Harley Quinn), now separated from the Joker and leading an all-female super-team. The comic book caper involves them protecting a young girl from the clutches of McGregor's villainous Black Mask.
Release date: 7th February 2020
Dolittle
Director: Stephen Gaghan
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Michael Sheen, Antonio Banderas, Jim Broadbent
Loosely adapted from the second of Hugh Lofting's venerable novels about the doctor who can talk to animals, the third screen version of the story casts Robert Downey Jr as a Welsh iteration of the title hero. Dolittle arrives – very late – having been beset with production problems and preemptively pegged as a disaster. The trailer did nothing to disabuse anyone of that notion. Still, maybe it'll be great.
Release date: 7th February 2020
Sonic the Hedgehog
Director: Jeff Fowler
Starring: Ben Schwartz (voice), Jim Carrey, James Marsden, Neal McDonough
The upcoming family-friendly Sonic movie blends live action and animation to adapt the long-running Sega video game series. Sonic (Schwartz) is the blue alien Hedgehog Who Fell to Earth, teaming up with Montana sheriff Marsden to defeat Carrey's evil Dr Robotnik. Grown adults got so upset about the first trailer that Sonic's look had to be completely redesigned.
Release date: 14th February 2020
The King's Man
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Harris Dickinson, Ralph Fiennes, Djimon Hounsou, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans
Kingsman 3 offers a prequel exploring the history of the secretive gentlemanly international espionage operation. Set in the early 1900s, its angle is a collection of history's worst criminals and tyrants joining forces to ignite a war to end all wars. Ifans is Rasputin and Stanley Tucci – not for the first time – plays Merlin. It's a lot.
Release date: 14th February 2020
Emma
Director: Autumn De Wilde
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Mia Goth, Miranda Hart, Bill Nighy
Jane Austen's 1815 novel gets its umpteenth adaptation as photographer and music video De Wilde's debut feature. Taylor-Joy plays the meddling Emma Woodhouse, fixated on matchmaking on behalf of her best friend Harriet (Goth), while neglecting her own perfect happiness.
Release date: 28th February 2020
Onward
Director: Dan Scanlon
Starring: Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Octavia Spencer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Pixar goes high-fantasy, presenting a modern, suburban world inhabited by elves, unicorns and dragons in Onward. That's the background for a story of two elf brothers, Ian and Barley Lightfoot, who go on a quest to help them come to terms with the death of their father.
Release date: 6th March 2020
A Quiet Place: Part 2
Director: John Krasinski
Starring: Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Brian Tyree Henry, Djimon Hounsou
Krasinski returns to direct, but not star, in the sequel to A Quiet Place, offering more adventures in a world that has been overrun by deadly creatures highly sensitive to noise, meaning that the surviving humans are forced to live in silence, communicating with sign language. Nothing is yet known about the plot specifics, but we might expect to be introduced to new survivors, and learn a little more about the aliens' origins.
Release date: 20th March 2020
Mulan
Director: Niki Caro
Starring: Yifei Liu, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Jason Scott Lee
Offering a slightly different take on the Chinese folktale to the animated 1998 version, Disney's live-action Mulan nevertheless follows the eldest daughter of an honoured warrior who is spirited, determined and quick on her feet – and becomes one of China's greatest warriors. No songs or wisecracking dragons this time though.
Release date: 27th March 2020
Peter Rabbit 2
Director: Will Gluck
Starring: James Corden, Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson, David Oyelowo
Reimagining Beatrix Potter's charming Edwardian vegetable thief as a cocky 21st-century hooligan seemed to do no harm at the 2018 box office, so here's more of same. Peter feels like he doesn't fit with his new family, so runs off to find other friends. But, he soon finds, different isn't necessarily better.
Release date: 27th March 2020
No Time To Die
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Starring: Daniel Craig, Jeffrey Wright, Lashana Lynch, Rami Malek
Delayed by some high-profile wrangling behind the scenes, Bond 25 finally arrives with True Detective director Fukunaga calling the shots. Craig's swan song in the role finds Bond retired from active service, but persuaded into one last mission when CIA buddy Felix Leiter (Wright) asks for a favour. Malek is the villain, although it's likely we'll also see Christoph Waltz back as Ernst Blofeld (if only as a cameo).
Release date: 3rd April 2020
The Secret Garden
Director: Marc Munden
Starring: Dixie Egerickx, Colin Firth, Julie Walters, Amir Wilson
Francis Hodgson Burnett's Edwardian children's classic gets a handsome-looking new adaptation: the first (not counting a steampunk cosplay oddity) since 1993. Egerickx is the orphaned girl sent to live with an uncle she has never previously met at an isolated Yorkshire manor house.
Release date: 17th April 2020
Black Widow
Director: Cate Shortland
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour, Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz
After a decade as a supporting member of the Avengers, Johansson's Natasha finally gets her own movie. How does that work given the events of Endgame? It's a prequel set just after Civil War, during the time when Natasha goes rogue with Steve Rogers. Antagonism comes via Red Guardian and Taskmaster.
Release date: 1st May 2020
Legally Blonde 3
Director: Jamie Suk
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Alanna Ubach, Jessica Caufiel
Technically the fourth in the series (since there's already been a straight-to-DVD threequel), Witherspoon here sashays back into the lead as Elle Woods, the apparent ditz who's a lot smarter than she seems. Previously she stormed Harvard and Washington. This time? That's still under wraps.
Release date: 8th May 2020
Chris Rock's Saw
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Starring: Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson, Max Minghella, Marisol Nichols
A rebootquel of the gory Saw franchise – the ninth Saw to date – the still untitled film is masterminded by and stars Rock, who, it turns out, is a long-term fan. He plays a cop on the trail of a serial killer responsible for a string of gnarly murders. Minghella plays Rock's partner on the force, Nichols is their captain, and Jackson stars as Rock's father.
Release date: 15th May 2020
Fast & Furious 9
Director: Justin Lin
Starring: Vin Diesel, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Michelle Rodriguez
Following spin-off Hobbes & Shaw, F&F Part 9 properly returns the franchise focus to Diesel. Nothing's been revealed about the plot yet, but threads of F&F8 are hanging, with Theron's villain Cipher still at large. Expect a degree of vehicular mayhem and some sentiment about family.
Release date: 22nd May 2020
Wonder Woman 1984
Director: Patty Jenkins
Starring: Gal Gadot, Kristin Wiig, Chris Pine, Pedro Pascal
The time-travelling sequel to 2017's Wonder Woman, and the fourth film in total to feature Gadot's Amazonian warrior princess, AKA Diana Prince, revisits some early Cold War feuds. The antagonist this time appears to be Wiig's Barbara Ann Minerva, AKA Cheetah: an heiress who, through an ancient ritual, acquires supernatural feline powers – but not without a cost to herself.
Release date: 5th June 2020
Soul
Director: Pete Docter
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, John Ratzenberger, Phylicia Rashad
This new Pixar adventure involves "a journey from the streets of New York City to the cosmic realms to discover the answers to life's most important questions". Foxx voices a musician who loses his passion for music, is transported out of his body, and must find his way back with the help of an infant soul learning about herself.
Release date: 19th June 2020
Minions: The Rise of Gru
Director: Kyle Balda
Starring: Steve Carell, Pierre Coffin
Expect a summer-holidays merchandising deluge as the Despicable Me franchise dedicates a second spin-off specifically to yellow horrors the Minions. This one's an origin story, about the slapsticky weirdos' earliest days working for the then-tyrannical Gru.
Release date: 10th July 2020
Ghostbusters 2020
Director: Jason Reitman
Starring: Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, McKenna Grace
A direct threequel ignoring the Paul Feig film, with a likely next-generation handover from the original cast to the newcomers. We'd put some fairly confident money on one of the new cast members playing a grown-up Oscar, the son of Peter Venkman and Dana Barrett, who appeared as a baby in Ghostbusters 2.
Release date: 10th July 2020
Top Gun: Maverick
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly
Thirty-four years later, Cruise's Pete Mitchell oversees a new class of drone-flying Top Gun candidates drawn from naval aviation. One of his trainees? Bradley Bradshaw, none other than the son of Maverick's old buddy Goose, who died last time around. Cruise has apparently been learning to fly fighter planes for this one, as one does.
Release date: 17th July 2020
Bill and Ted Face the Music
Director: Dean Parisot
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, William Sadler
A much-belated threequel to the much beloved first two Bill and Ted movies is finally on the cards. 29 years on from their bogus journey, our heroes have yet to fulfill their rock and roll destiny. But when a visitor from the future warns them that only their song can save life as we know it and bring harmony to the universe, the now middle-aged best friends set out on a new adventure.
Release date: 21st August 2020
Death on the Nile
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Gal Gadot, Letitia Wright, Sophie Okonedo, Russell Brand
Following 2017's Murder on the Orient Express, here's another much-loved case for Agatha Christie's ace detective Hercule Poirot, with Branagh once again taking the lead. Swapping snowy Swiss tracks for the hot sun of Egypt, the film promises another all-star cast, among whom skulks a killer (or killers).
Release date: 9th October 2020
Halloween Kills
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Anthony Michael Hall
David Gordon Green's reboot of the Michael Myers stab-a-thon series continues, with this being the second part of the trilogy he began in 2018. Curtis returns once again as Laurie Strode, battling Myers since 1979, somehow still at it. There's no killin' what can't be killed. Trilogy capper Halloween Ends is due in 2021.
Release date: 16th October 2020
The Witches
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci, Chris Rock
Roald Dahl's terrifying, barking mad tale speaks of a boy and his grandmother who get turned into mice and still have to battle a coven of witches with a horrible plan for all the children in the world. Zemeckis is promising to hew closer to Dahl's 1973 novel than the previous Nicolas Roeg film.
Release date: 16th October 2020
West Side Story
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Corey Stoll
Spielberg's first musical adapts Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein's classic stage show, itself an updated and relocated retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The feuding families become warring gangs the Jets and the Sharks. Can Tony and Maria's love cross that great divide?
Release date: 18th December 2020
This is an extract from an article which originally appeared on Empire Online. Head to their site to read the article in full.
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