Fall Movie Preview 2024
Wicked, A Complete Unknown and sequels to Moana, Joker, Venom, Gladiator and more.
By Scott Renshaw @scottrenshaw
The lines between movie "seasons" are pretty blurry nowadays. Summer isn't just about franchise blockbusters, and fall isn't just about awards-bait dramas. The chunk of the film-release calendar between now and the end of the year covers a wide range of genres and potential audiences; here's an overview. (Release dates always subject to change.)
SEPTEMBER
9/20 Headliner: Transformers One. The origins of the legendary conflict between Megatron and Optimus Prime gets an animated treatment in what sounds an awful lot like Wicked.
9/27 Headliner: Megalopolis. Francis Ford Coppola's self-financed futuristic drama was divisive in its Cannes debut this spring, but one of the greatest filmmakers ever has earned his big swings. Also: Kate Winslet stars as pioneering photojournalist "Lee" Miller in the biopic Lee; Lupita Nyong'o voices a robot stranded on an isolated island in the animated adventure The Wild Robot.
OCTOBER
10/4 Headliner: Joker: Folie à Deux. Joaquin Phoenix reprises his Oscar-winning role as the crazed jester, this time paired with Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga). Apparently it's sort of a musical, but also sort of not, depending on how you interpret co-writer/director Todd Phillips. Also: White Bird, the oft-delayed drama about a young Jewish girl trying to survive in Nazi-occupied France; Saoirse Ronan plays a recovering alcoholic returning to her remote hometown in The Outrun.
10/11 Headliner: Saturday Night. Co-writer/director Jason Reitman explores the origins of TV comedy institution Saturday Night Live—specifically, the day of the very first broadcast in October 1975. A cast of mostly-unknowns plays the soon-to-be-legends who were then mostly-unknowns. Also: The life story of pop star Pharrell Williams gets the unusual treatment of LEGO-style animation in Piece by Piece.
10/18 Headliner: Smile 2. The hit 2022 horror film—about a manifestation of surviving trauma that passes from survivor to survivor, in the form of visions of creepy smiling people—gets its inevitable sequel. Also:Cannes award-winner Anora, from Sean Baker (The Florida Project), follows a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch.
10/25 Headliner: Venom: The Last Dance. Tom Hardy is back as Eddie Brock, reluctant host to the alien symbiote Venom, for this third and (theoretically) final installment, as the duo find themselves on the run.
NOVEMBER
11/1 Headliner: Here. It's quite the stunt concept: A fixed camera, never moving or zooming in, watches a single room over the course of 100 years. Not surprising that digital dabbler Robert Zemeckis is behind that unmoving camera, reuniting with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright from Forrest Gump. Also: Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin are Jewish cousins visiting the Polish birthplace of their grandmother in A Real Pain.
11/8 Headliner: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. The beloved 1972 book by Barbara Robinson gets an uplifting holiday-movie adaptation about the consequences when a town's most rambunctious kids get involved in a Christmas play.
11/15 Headliner: Red One. Dwayne Johnson goes in search of a kidnapped Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) in this high-concept action comedy from director Jake Kasdan (the Jumanji remakes).
11/22 Headliner: Wicked. The smash Broadway musical adaptation of Gregory Maguire's book—speculating on the friendship between Oz's witches—gets its big-screen adaptation, with Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Ariana Grande as Galinda and Jeff Goldblum as the wizard. Also: Director Ridley Scott returns for the long-awaited sequel Gladiator II.
11/27 Headliner: Moana 2. This follow-up to Disney's 2016 hit animated adventure was originally planned for Disney+, but the original cast returns, so fingers crossed that we're in the same territory as the originally-direct-to-video Toy Story 2.
DECEMBER
12/6 Headliner: Nightbitch. Stay-at-home motherhood gets a psychological horror take from star Amy Adams and writer/director Marielle Heller. Also: Period horror-comedy follows teenagers crashing an anxious New Year's Eve 2000 party in Y2K.
12/13 Headliner: Kraven the Hunter. After multiple bumped release dates, we'll believe it when we see Aaron Taylor-Johnson (who's already played Marvel's Quicksilver and Kick-Ass) as the comic-book character who survives an animal attack to become a super-powered hunter.
12/20 Headliner: Mufasa: The Lion King. The CGI remake from 2019 made a kajillion bucks, so here's a follow-up, telling the origin story of Simba's dad. I hope we've all learned by now not to call this "live-action." Also: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 returns to the world of the video-game critters.
12/25 Headliner: A Complete Unknown. Timothée Chalamet plays Bob Dylan in this biopic from director James Mangold (Ring of Fire). Because such things are as inevitable as the grave, expect an Oscar nomination. Also: Robert Eggers (The Witch) tells the Dracula story once again in Nosferatu.
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