The Super Bowl aired this last Sunday. I didn’t watch a single second of it. Not even for the commercials or Justin Timberlake’s halftime show (though I did watch some of both a few days later on YouTube). The only exciting part for me was that Super Bowl Sunday is now apparently the official start of Hollywood trying to get us pumped for their summer roll out. There were several cool trailers that dropped during the game (and several more have come out in the week since). Call this week’s post “Five Cool Trailers.”
Solo: A Star Wars Story
This is the Star Wars Story I’ve been least excited about. I just don’t know that I need an origin story for Han Solo. When Disney announced plans to essentially keep making Star Wars films for all eternity, including lots of stand-alone films, I got really excited over the possibilities. I’d love to see darker, grittier films. Or a really light-hearted comedy. Or maybe a noir set on Coruscant. The possibilities are endless. Unfortunately thus far, Disney seems to be playing it totally safe sticking with characters we already know and love and sticking to a pretty consistent tone. Solo: A Star Wars Story sounded like more of the same. The fact that they’ve been firing directors who might be straying from the fold and them replacing them with guys like Ron Howard (and I like Ron Howard but one would never consider him to be daring) only added to my trepidation.
But I gotta admit, this trailer, it’s getting me all sorts of excited. I might have let out a little “squee” when they moved the camera down the super clean hallway of the Millennium Falcon.
Deadpool, Meet Cable
It is easy to get superhero fatigue these days. Between the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the DC Extended Universe, and whatever the X-Men movies call themselves, it seems like there is a new superhero movie coming out every other week. The Deadpool movie that came out a couple of years ago was a much needed fresh take. It was decidedly R-rated, it brought the action but didn’t take itself too seriously, and it was a whole lot of fun (and really funny).
A new trailer for the still untitled Deadpool sequel (or possibly the actual name is the Untitled Deadpool Sequel as you can never tell when this series is serious) introduces Josh Brolin as Cable. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Deadpool trailer without the Merc with the Mouth interrupting and injecting his own gleeful fourth-wall-breaking silliness.
Mission:Impossible – Fallout
Over five films, the Mission:Impossible franchise has slowly turned away from its intricately plotted spy stories to big, explosive-filled, action flicks. This sixth installment doesn’t look like it will be reversing that in any way. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, these films do big, explosive-filled, action sequences really well. In fact, they are some of the only action films I’ll watch anymore. If Fallout is as exciting as the trailer makes it out to be, it may be the best in the bunch.
Castle Rock
I consider myself a pretty casual Stephen King fan. I’ve enjoyed all the books I’ve read by him, but he’s such a prolific writer that I’ve barely scratched the surface of his collected works. One of the things I love about King’s books is that they are often connected in both important and inconsequential ways. A great many of them are either set or refer to the fictional town of Castle Rock. Hulu has just released a trailer for their new series based in that town and it will presumably be a great cache of references to King’s books. It promises lots of creepy things. It’s also got a great cast including Melanie Lynskey, Andre Holland, Jane Levy, Sissy Spacek, Bill Skarsgard, Scott Glenn, and Terry O’Quinn.
Red Sparrow
Jennifer Lawrence stars in the La Femme Nikita-looking story of a young woman manipulated into becoming a super spy. There is no part of that sentence that doesn’t get me excited.
Venom
I know nothing about this Marvel character other than it has some association with Spider-Man. For a long time, I assumed he was Spider-Man but with some kind of evil alter ego going on. Apparently, he’s an alien that merges with people to create an anti-hero people love. Or something. Maybe he did merge with Spidey at some point. Sure looks like a black-clad Spider-Man to me anyways. Whatever, a new teaser dropped and it got folks excited. It’s a teaser so you don’t actually get much info other than Tom Hardy looking broody.
