Movie Drought You Say? Our Most Anticipated Films For 2020
COVID-19 has done many strange things to our world; one of them has been killing off the release schedules for most Hollywood film studios in 2020. Suffice to say, if you’ve already binged everything on Prime and Netflix, that’s because studios won’t be returning to regular production schedules until 2021. However, there are still a handful of films which will see the light of day; we hope that is. Release dates keep getting pushed back, and remakes keep getting churned out. (see below)
These are just a handful of films we have picked out that are slated for release in 2020 that have caught our attention. They should be on your checklist of to do this year. If you haven’t seen our favourite film of 2020 King of Staten Island, go and stream it now on Apple TV.
Boys State
This film was the Grand Jury Prize Sundance-winning documentary of 2020 and shortly thereafter picked up by the very tasteful film house A24. Directors of the movie include Amanda McBaine and one of the finest documentarians working today Jesse Moss, the same man behind, brilliant The Overnighters. Boys State “follows a thousand teenage boys attending Boys/Girls State in Texas, coming to build a representative government from the ground up.” It looks like an intriguing watch and comes at a time when many people are questioning not only politics itself but the way the two-party system itself.
Release date: August 14th, 2020
Tenet
This was going to be one of the biggest releases of 2020, period. But news emerged this week that Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated sci-fi thriller Tenet has now been pushed back indefinitely. Starring, John David Washington and Robert Pattinson, not much is known about the film other than that the film is centred around an operative of the organisation Tenet, John David Washington who is actively trying to stop World War III.
Soul
This will be Pixar’s first film where its lead role is given to an African American, none other than Jamie Foxx. The film also stars Tina fey and is centred around a jazz musician who is met by his untimely fate. His soul then has to journey through the Great Beyond and make its way back to earth, deep right? Most surprisingly, the score for this film is by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
The French Dispatch
A Wes Anderson film release is more like an event in itself these days, two years since his last feature Isle of Dogs was released. This film has been described as a “love letter to journalists set at an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th-century French city”, centring on three separate storylines. The roll call for this film is as expected exceptional and includes amongst many others Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand and Timothée Chalamet. Expect exquisite set designs and wry humour.
Release date: October 16th, 2020
Bill & Ted Face the Music
We’re on the fence on this one, Hollywood has its sights on remaking anything these days that was a box office hit in the 80s and 90s, but this one might have been best kept in the closet, we loved it just the way it is.
First released in 1989, this 2020 reworking centres around a much older Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter who have to create a song in 78 minutes in order to save the world. Expect metalhead slacker sci-fi comedy to make a comeback.
Release date: August 28th, 2020
Candyman
I saw this film when I was just wee lad and it scared the bejeezus out of me, I think it was those bee swarms that did it for me. Now a reworked Candyman finds its way back to our cinemas, only this time crafted by none other than comedy-horror auteur, Jordan Peele, the man behind some of the most original films of the last few years, Get Out and Us. All you have to do is say Candyman five times and the rest well, we’ll leave it to your imagination.
Release date: October 16th, 2020.
Dune
We can’t believe this is happening. After Alejandro Jodorowsky famously failed at erecting this film in the 1970s, David Lynch then infamously failed in 1984 with his 0wn remake starring Sting, now Frenchman hitmaker Denis Villeneuve will offer up his own version. Starring, Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, and Oscar Isaac, the sci-fi film, based on the iconic Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel is set on the distant planet Arrakis, and is built around “the most valuable substance in the universe, “the spice”, a drug which extends human life, provides superhuman levels of thought, and makes foldspace travel possible.” Do us a favour, read the book before you see it.
Release date: December 18th, 2020
Amongst other much-rumoured releases for 2020 include, On the Rocks from Sofia Copolla, West Side Story by Steven Spielberg, Eddie Murphy’s Coming 2 America and a Top Gun reprisal.
