If 2015 was the year of rather safe “triboot” or “legacyquel” film-making, with nostalgia-packed mega-movies such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Jurassic World filling multiplexes, 2016 looks like something of a riskier era for fanboy film-making. By the time Christmas rolls around we’ll know, for instance, if the video-game movie has finally come into its own, or if all the hype surrounding ambitious fantasy epics such as Warcraft and Assassin’s Creed can’t fail to disguise the huge gulf between armchair adventuring and the big screen.
We’ll also have a good idea whether the flood of new superhero movies, from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, to Captain America: Civil War and at least three X-Men-related offerings, sates or dampens the apparently infinite demand for colourful comic-book fare. And we’ll know whether Hollywood’s desire to send its most popular sagas down ever-more-ambitious rabbit holes, via audacious spin-offs such as Star Wars: Rogue One and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, ultimately ends up being seen as an insulting money-making exercise, or simply a good old-fashioned example of giving the people what they want.
Animated fantasies
If you’re looking for original big-budget film-making in 2016, the all-CGI arena is a good place to start, as there could easily be another Inside Out, Wreck It Ralph or Rango lurking in the schedules. Disney Animation’s Zootopia, with its bunny police officer struggling to be taken seriously in a world of stronger, mostly male talking animals, could be the feminist Toy Story, while Universal’s The Secret Life of Pets should give Despicable Me’s Chris Renaud the chance to prove he can keep audiences laughing when the Minions are out of town. Staying on an anthropomorphic tip but moving into sequel territory, Pixar’s Finding Dory looks a little lacklustre compared to its warm-hearted predecessor, and Kung Fu Panda 3 might struggle to maintain the quality levels of its predecessors, even with a new supernatural villain voiced by the wonderfully spiky JK Simmons. Dreamworks Animation also has the rather lightweight-looking Trolls, based on the punky children’s toys, due in November, while Disney Animation’s second offering of 2016 is the South Pacific-set musical fantasy Moana, from the team behind 2013’s middling The Princess and the Frog.
Superhero smackdowns
It really is getting very busy on the superhero front in 2016. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War look the most populist efforts, but there’s also a surprising amount of buzz around starry comic-book warsploitation riff Suicide Squad, from Fury’s David Ayer. If the trailers for Deadpool are anything to go by, first-time director Tim Miller’s film could take the superhero flick into refreshingly edgy new territory, while X-Men: Apocalypse should build on the success of the mutant saga’s gripping 2014, Days of Future Past – which in many ways ushered in the “legacyquel era”. All bets are off for Gambit, another 20th Century Fox-produced X-Men spin-off. Director Doug Liman did an excellent job with Edge of Tomorrow, but for every Fox superhero triumph there’s usually a Fantastic Four lurking around the corner.
Going out on a limb, I’m calling Marvel’s Doctor Strange, with Benedict Cumberbatch as the sorceror supreme, as the most tantalising comic-book prospect of 2016. It may have the rather underwhelming Scott Derrickson (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Sinister) in the director’s chair, but the Disney-owned studio has always been a writer and producer-driven setup. Marvel needs Doctor Strange to take over from Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man as boss man chief of The Avengers, and has recruited Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mads Mikkelsen and Rachel McAdams to make sure its new effort has the required gravitas. And it sounds like the film’s psychedelic look should be suitably barmy and far-out.
Space opera sequels and romance in the stars
According to new research, Star Wars: Rogue One is the most highly anticipated film of 2016 amongst US cinemagoers thanks to the barnstorming success of The Force Awakens. Set prior to the first Star Wars movie and pitched around the famed crew of rebels who conspired to steal the plans to the first Death Star, Gareth Edwards’ movie looks at first glance like a Star Wars movie operating at half-throttle. Will audiences buy into space opera without lightsabers, Force ghosts and the eternal Jedi/Sith battle? The film’s success might just balance on whether rumours that Forest Whitaker is playing Darth Vader turn out to be true.
As far as that other long-running space saga goes, there seems to be little or no buzz around Star Trek Beyond now that Justin Lin has taken over from JJ Abrams and Fast and Furified Kirk and Spock’s latest adventure (at least, according to a much-criticised recent trailer.) But two movies, Passengers and The Space Between Us, promise to offer up a more grownup take on the extra-terrrestrial experience. The former is set on a ship carrying travellers to a distant destination, and sees Chris Pratt’s lonely early-waker interrupt Jennifer Lawrence’s suspended animation in the hope of getting a bit of company, sparking unexpected romance. And the latter centres on the interplanetary love affair between two young people (Asa Butterfield and Britt Robertson) who are drawn together despite living in (literally) different worlds.
Live action remakes
Is there anybody out there who isn’t holding their breath for the chance to hear Mark Rylance’s take on Roald Dahl’s The BFG, with Steven Spielberg in the director’s chair? Let’s hope the ET film-maker brings more brio to the table this time than he did on 2011’s slightly lacklustre Tintin. Spielberg often seems to lose his mojo when working beyond American borders, but a timely return to form with the excellent Bridge of Spies bodes well.
Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book has a sumptuous cast – and rights to all those hearty knockabout songs from the 1967 animation – in its favour. But Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland proved five years ago that Carrollian whimsy is entirely wrong for the 21st-century Hollywood action movie template, and Muppets director James Bobin might struggle with sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass – especially since Burton used all the best characters from both Lewis Carroll’s late 19th-century children’s fables last time out.
Swords and sorcery epics
JK Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, with Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne as the titular magizoologist, could well be as critic-proof as some of the weaker entries in the blockbuster Harry Potter saga from which it spawned. Redmayne has the impish charisma to prove an inspired choice, but we have yet to see whether Rowling’s magical universe can survive the trip 70 years back in time, and across the Atlantic, without losing some of its charm.
The recent trailer for Duncan “Moon” Jones’ Warcraft, which appears to cleave too closely to its source material, left me distinctly depressed about the long-gestating video-game adaptation. But I’m still holding out hope for Justin Kurzel’s Assassin’s Creed, which will reunite the key cast of the Australian film-maker’s superb Macbeth, Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. Let’s hope Ubisoft shows a little more vision than World of Warcraft makers Blizzard seem to have done, and gives the film-making team – Fassbender is also a hands-on producer – free reign to move beyond the rigid boundaries of the original games.
Elsewhere on a fantasy tip, Gods of Egypt has already made its heavily whitewashed bed, and The Huntsman: Winter’s War is a spin-off from a stylish but insipid movie (Snow White and the Huntsman) that only achieved box-office success thanks to Twilight fans’ enduring support for star Kristen Stewart. For much more promising fun on a period tip, Netflix’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny hits the streaming service in February with Hong Kong martial arts legend Yuen Woo-ping in charge of the cameras.
