2019 movie preview: Sequels, reboots and a whole lot of The Rock
From Captain Marvel, Shazam and Avengers 4 to new flicks from Scorsese and Tarantino, these are the big movies coming out in 2019.
It's almost 2019, folks! And you know what that means: a new calendar stuffed with movie blockbusters. Twelve months of action, comedy, superheroes, more superheroes, and... OK, so it's mostly superheroes.
Yes, it's another year of comic blockbusters, sequels and reboots, mainly from Disney . But there are some original movies coming in 2019 too, from directors including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Jordan Peele. There's a fair bit of intriguing sci-fi and chilling horror. And an absolute ton of The Rock.
Click through the gallery to meet the big movies for 2019.
Comic capers
It almost goes without saying, but in 2019 the box office will be dominated by comic book adventures. DC's big movie is Shazam!, about a wide-eyed teen turned into a muscular hero. And Marvel introduces us to Brie Larson's Captain Marvel for more spacefaring superhero action, before dropping the big one in April -- Avengers 4. What happened after the snap? Infinity War's cliffhanger ending pays off in Avengers: Endgame.
Marvel's X-Men continue their adventures in Dark Phoenix and teen-centric spin-off The New Mutants, a horror-themed take on the comic book characters that was delayed from 2018. There's also Spider-Man: Far From Home, while old favourites Hellboy and the Joker get new looks courtesy of David Harbour and Joaquin Phoenix.
And there's more to comics than caped crusaders. Look out for gritty crime drama The Kitchen about a group of women who take over their husband's felonious enterprises. And Radioactive, in which Marjane Satrapi, creator of Persepolis, adapts the comic by Lauren Redniss telling the story of Marie Curie.
Wall-to-wall Walt
Time to talk about the elephant in the room -- literally. Disney is continuing its streak of dominating the box office by simply remaking its classic back catalogue, this year starting with Dumbo. In March, everyone's favourite elephant gets the live-action treatment or, since it's mostly computer-animated, maybe we should say photo-realistic. Tim Burton is in charge of that one.
Meanwhile, Aladdin gets the same photo-real makeover in May and The Lion King in July. So yes, that's a run of three Disney remakes every two months, as well as animated sequels Frozen 2 and Toy Story 4 in November and June. Plus there's the Marvel movies -- and the small matter of Star Wars Episode IX in December.
Dumbo is one of three Disney classics getting a CG-driven update in 2019.
As if that isn't enough, the house of mouse launches its own streaming service Disney+ in late 2019, which will both stream the company's many classics and remake them too. Whether these remakes land in 2019 or in coming years, look out for new versions of The Rocketeer, 3 Men and a Baby, Father of the Bride, High Fidelity, Lady and the Tramp, Peter Pan, The Parent Trap, The Sword in the Stone, the Mighty Ducks and Monsters Inc. Not to mention episodic spin-offs about Loki, Winter Soldier and Falcon, The Mandalorian and a Rogue One prequel.
We hope you like Disney, is what we're saying.
Sequels and reboots
Outside of Disney's various franchises there are a whole host of other sequels. Third and possibly final outings include Kingsman 3, John Wick 3: Parabellum and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. Long-awaited sequels include Son of Shaft and Zombieland Too, while Glass and Godzilla: King of the Monsters manage to be both sequels and crossovers .
On the reboot front, we've got new versions of The Addams Family -- with Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron as Gomez and Morticia -- and Men in Black, with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson as the new MIB. Plus Elizabeth Banks writes, directs and stars in a new Charlie's Angels. One of the new angels is Naomi Scott, who also stars in Aladdin, making her a good tip for 2019's breakout star.
Game night
Elizabeth Banks is also on board The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, once again featuring the voice of Chris Pratt in the brick-built big-screen adventure.
Then there's Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. Possibly the weirdest mainstream movie of the year, Detective Pikachu features Ryan Reynolds in some kind of junior Blade Runner fantasy. It'll either be brilliant or incomprehensible, or more likely both.
Original and best
Fear not: Amid the sequels, reboots, spin-offs and whatever the heck Detective Pikachu is, there are some actual original movies. Hurray! Possibly the most anticipated movie of the year is Us, Jordan Peele's follow-up to the smash hit Get Out. Starring Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke and Elisabeth Moss, Us is set to be another socially-conscious thriller.
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio dress down for Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
There's always a sizeable amount of anticipation around the release of a new Quentin Tarantino flick, although the early buzz around Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was tempered by the icky subject matter of the Charles Manson murders. Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Al Pacino lead a galaxy of stars, including Margot Robbie and Damian Lewis playing real life stars Sharon Tate and Steve McQueen.
Brad Pitt also stars in sci-fi thriller Ad Astra, in which he's an astronaut searching the galaxy for his missing father. Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche are arthouse astronauts in trippy sci-fi High Life, while aliens cause problems back on Earth in Captive State.
For kids, Joe Cornish updates the King Arthur myth in The Kid Who Would Be King. And stop-motion studio Laika follows the gorgeous Kubo and the Two Strings with animated caveman quest Missing Link.
Robert De Niro hits the mean streets for Martin Scorsese's gangster epic The Irishman.
Over on Netflix, Martin Scorsese teams up with his dream cast of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel and Joe Pesci for The Irishman, a mob drama about the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. Think those guys are a little long in the tooth these days? Fuhgeddaboudit! The goodfellas will be digitally de-aged to depict their respective roles at different points in history.
Amazon , on the other hand, pairs Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones as Victorian balloonists in The Aeronauts. Amazon is also adapting Donna Tartt's seminal novel The Goldfinch.
Other book adaptations coming to the big screen for the first time include Alita: Battle Angel, a CG-driven cyberpunk action story adapted from a classic manga by Robert Rodrigues and James Cameron. Meanwhile Spider-Man's Tom Holland teams up with Star Wars star Daisy Ridley for Chaos Walking, based on the young adult novels by Patrick Ness.
I Am Mother is one of the intriguing films opening at the Sundance film festival in January.
These are just the mainstream movies scheduled for 2019: There's also a ton of indie and unusual films expected. For example, January's Sundance Film Festival will debut films like Share, about a girl investigating a mysterious video, and I am Mother, about a girl's friendship with a robot after the apocalypse.
Official Secrets and The Report dramatise real-life stories of whistleblowers during the War on Terror. Speaking of true stories, documentaries at Sundance include The Great Hack, exploring the Cambridge Analytica scandal; Knock Down the House, about political candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; and The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, which exposes the shocking fraud behind Elizabeth Holmes' disgraced company Theranos.
All at sea
You know how sometimes two movies come along covering the same subject? In 2019, we're getting not one but two World War 2 naval battle movies.
In the icy Atlantic, we've got Tom Hanks trying to lead a convoy of ships through a deadly pack of marauding enemy U-Boats in Greyhound in March. And over in the sweltering Pacific, Roland Emmerich steers Woody Harrelson and Aaron Eckhart through the pivotal battle of Midway, released on Veterans Day.
Drive my car
Car fans are in for a treat in 2019. Action-comedy Stuber stars Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista as an Uber driver and his fare, a maverick cop. Meanwhile, the movie with probably the most does-what-it-says-on-the-tin title is Ford v. Ferrari, which puts Christian Bale at the wheel for the story of the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race.
Whole lot of Rock
Can you smell what the Rock is cooking? Musclebound action hunk Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson is clearly a workaholic, filling 2019 with big movies. He's the star of Jungle Cruise -- yes, another Disney film -- as well as the sequel to 2018's surprise hit Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. He's also in one of the year's many spin-offs when he measures his biceps against Jason Statham as they reprise their Fast and Furious characters Hobbs and Shaw.
To top it off, not only does he star in true-life wrestling movie Fighting with My Family -- he also produced the movie and plays himself, complete with full WWE-era patter.
King of horror
The movie It was a huge hit in 2017, sending film producers scurrying to the bookshelves for more Steven King stories to adapt. Hence this year we get It: Chapter 2 in September, and a new take on Pet Sematary in April.
2019 sees not one but two doll-related spine-tinglers: a reboot of Child's Play starring Aubrey Plaza, and yet another Annabelle movie from horror hit factory Blumhouse. Blumhouse also has a couple of other low-budget shockers including sequel Happy Death Day 2U on the calendar.
Which movies are you excited about in 2019?
Culture: Your hub for everything from film and television to music, comics, toys and sports.
Movie Magic: The secrets behind the scenes of your favorite films and filmmakers.