The 2017 Summer Movie Season is right around the corner and so, we have selected 20 "must-see" films arriving in theaters over the next four months. It may feel a bit odd to realize that the official summer blockbuster season hasn't already started, what with such box office heavyweights as Fate of the Furious, Beauty and the Beast, Logan and Kong: Skull Island having already hit the scene; not to mention, surprise breakout hits such as Split and Get Out pulling in sizable crowds during their respective theatrical runs. While blockbusters may be popping up in just about every time of the year nowadays, the months of May through August are still prime tentpole season in Hollywood.
As has also become customary in recent years, there will be multiple superhero movie universe installments hitting theaters during 2017's Summer Movie Season (of both the Marvel and DC variety). On top of that, there are multiple franchise revivals/relaunches on the way, as well as some good old-fashioned sequels and reboots/remakes. Per Screen Rant tradition, however, our list goes beyond the biggest tentpoles of the summer and includes some promising indie films that are on the way, as well as more dramatic offerings and even a handful of auteur-driven productions, no less.
Per usual, these movies are listed in the order of their release date, so we leave it to you (the readers) to decide which ones are your most anticipated releases of the Summer 2017 Movie Season. So, without further ado, here is Screen Rant’s 2017 Summer Movie Preview – The 20 Films to See.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (May 5)
A Marvel Cinematic Universe film once again kicks-off the Summer Movie Season this year, this time in the form of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The Guardians sequel brings back James Gunn as director (and sole screenwriter, this time), in addition to Guardians 1 stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, among other actors who played key roles during Gunn's original romp across the MCU's cosmos, from back in 2014.
ing the core Guardians cast in the sequel is screen icon Kurt Rusell, playing Star-Lord's (Pratt) dad - who in the MCU continuity, is the five post-credits scenes. While some of those beats will be of the purely silly variety (think Baby Groot's dance and Howard the Duck's cameo in the credits for Guardians 1), others will lay the groundwork for important events and characters to come in the MCU's ever-expanding mythology.
Early reviews for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 suggest the film is more a solid continuation of the franchise, rather than an ante-upping sequel (a la Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Of course, that still sets the stage for the rest of this summer's superhero offerings to reach the same bar of quality as the Guardians sequel... and maybe even exceed it.
Alien: Covenant (May 19)
The last time Ridley Scott revisited the Alien franchise (back in 2012), the result was Prometheus: a quasi-prequel to Scott's 1979 sci-fi/horror classic that took the property in some unexpected directions, to either the chagrin and/or delight of longtime fans. This year's Alien: Covenant sees Scott take the series back to its roots, pitting a group of unsuspecting human space travelers against one nasty extraterrestrial beast that's out to kill them all.
This time however, the humans are the of the colony spaceship Covenant and the beast they cross paths with is the "Neomorph", a deadly variation on the iconic (and already plenty-dangerous) Xenomorph that was by and large absent from Prometheus; unless you count the Deacon that was "birthed" by an Engineer during the final scene. Speaking of the Engineers, that mysterious alien race's home planet serves as the main setting of Covenant; paying off the events that transpired in Prometheus before it (namely, Elizabeth Shaw and David heading off to find their world).
Alien: Covenant, in other words, aspires to be a thematic continuation of the 2001-esque Prometheus (read: a more slow-burn and overtly philosophical sci-fi film), while at the same time delivering the relentless, sci-fi flavored horror movie experience that Scott's original Alien did, all those years ago. The hope is that Covenant succeeds in balancing those two approaches and in doing so, unifies Prometheus' detractors and fans alike. One hopes that it does anyway, seeing as (apparently) Scott intends to keep making Alien movies for as long as he's still breathing.
Baywatch (May 25)
Even as the Dwayne Johnson co-headlined The Fate of the Furious continues to tear it up at the global box office, fans of 'The Rock' are looking forward to his next starring vehicle in May: Baywatch. A big screen reboot of the 1980s/90s TV mainstay of the same name, the movie costars Zac Efron as well as Alexandra Daddario (The Rock's onscreen daughter in San Andreas) and Ilfenesh Hadera (Billions), among others, as the highly-photogenic of the lifeguard crew that protects a popular Californian beach.
Much like 21 Jump Street before it, Baywatch the movie reimagines its TV show inspiration (itself, something of a soapy drama) as a raunchy action/comedy that revolves foremost around a buddy duo (Johnson and Efron) who must solve a crime plot and, quite literally, save their "Baywatch brand" in the process of doing so. Seth Gordon of Horrible Bosses, Identity Thief and The Goldbergs fame, is the director leading the charge behind the camera, while Quantico's Priyanka Chopra takes on the role of the movie's "big bad."
Putting an R-Rated movie spin on a popular TV show title isn't necessarily a surefire recipe for success (as Rampage video game adaptation), so The Rock won't be taking a break anytime soon; regardless of whether Baywatch is a hit, miss, or something in-between.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (May 26)
Jack Sparrow hasn't set sail on the high seas in six years, following the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in 2011. This year's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - the fifth installment in Disney's theme park ride-inspired, swashbuckling franchise - not only brings Johnny Depp's Captain Jack back to the big screen; it allow sees Orlando Bloom return to the role of series mainstay Will Turner, a character who hasn't appeared onscreen since the release of the original Pirates trilogy finale, 2007's At World's End, a decade ago.
Dead Men Tell No Tales pits Jack against one Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem), a pirate-hating captain who returns from the dead, many years after the younger Mr. Sparrow led him to his doom. ing Jack on his adventure is Will and Elizabeth Swann's (Keira Knightley) now-grown son, Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), as well as The Maze Runner's Kaya Scodelario as Carina Smyth: an astronomer with vital information that Jack and Henry need, in order to stop Salazar and (in Henry's case) possibly save Will from his dark fate.
Early reactions to Dead Men Tell No Tales peg the film as being a return to form for the franchise, following the not-so-beloved (but very commercially-successful) On Stranger Tides. Directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg do seem to be taking a back-to-basics approach with their addition to the Pirates franchise - including, building upon the mythology of the original Pirates film trilogy in a significant manner (something On Stranger Tides did not do) - and the fifth Pirates adventure may yet succeed at breathing fresh life into the franchise, because of that.
Wonder Woman (June 2)
Gal Gadot's Diana Prince gets her own DC Extended Universe solo film with this year's release of Wonder Woman. ing Gadot onscreen in the movie is Chris Pine as WWI-era pilot Steve Trevor, while the movie's behind-the-scenes talent includes Patty Jenkins (of Monster fame) as director and DC Entertainment President Geoff Johns as co-screenwriter; drawing from the screen story that he co-wrote with Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice director, Zack Snyder.
Wonder Woman takes place well before the events of the previously-released installments in the DCEU, following Diana as she grows up within Themyscira society and begins to tap into the full extent of her super-powers; before then journeying to the world of men with Steve, in the hopes of saving humankind in the wake of 'The Great War'. While the historical backdrop of the film means that Wonder Woman is going to be fairly standalone in of its connections to the larger DCEU (a la Captain America: The First Avenger and the MCU), Jenkins' film will nonetheless introduce key elements that will come into play in future DCEU movies. That includes a proper introduction to Amazonian society, before it serves a significant role in the prologue to Snyder's Justice League, later this year.
Based on the trailers and the collective talent involved, Wonder Woman is shaping up to be not only a great solo movie debut for Diana Prince, but also the DCEU feature that manages to please both the fans and the detractors of previous installments in DC's cinematic universe. Now everyone just has to wait and see if that actually turns out to be the case.
The Mummy (June 9)
As a change of pace, this year's addition to the growing pile of Tom Cruise-led summer movies is neither a Mission: Impossible film nor a fresh IP adaptation (see Jack Reacher, Edge of Tomorrow), but rather a reboot/relaunch of a long-established film franchise. That would be a reference to The Mummy, to be exact, based on the Universal supernatural horror/adventure property that originated with the Boris Karloff-starring The Mummy in 1932 - though nowadays, most filmgoers are better familiar with the Brendan Frasier-headlined Mummy series than began in the 1990s.
This 2017 version of The Mummy differs from its predecessors in some pretty important ways. For starters, the eponymous character - once again, an ancient Egyptian who awakens in the present-day with world domination on their mind - is now Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), rather than Imhotep from the previous Mummy films. However, the bigger sticking point is that the new Mummy could serve as the first brick in the wall of a modern shared cinematic universe, bringing Universal's most famous "monsters" together in the manner of a superhero franchise, like the MCU and/or DCEU.
However Universal's hopes for a monster film universe ultimately pan out, The Mummy (as directed by Alex Kurtzman) seems poised to deliver everything moviegoers have come to expect from their Tom Cruise action movies - including, Cruise performing insane practical stunts, defying death at every turn and (of course) running a whole lot. In all seriousness, the trailers for The Mummy make it look like an exciting and overall fun summer thrill ride, as well as yet another solid notch in Cruise's action hero belt.
All Eyez on Me (June 16)
Musician biopics have never gone out of style in Hollywood and among this year's additions to the pile is Benny Boom's All Eyez on Me. Boom's Tupac Shikur docudrama has gone through something of a difficult development process, between its director change-ups, release date delays and battles over the rights to the late icon Tupac's music. Having now overcome the various roadblocks that it encountered over the course of its journey however, the movie will be hitting theaters at last this June.
All Eyez on Me, by most s, is a straightforward dramatization of Tupac's journey from a young man living in New York City to becoming a highly-influential and politically-active rapper, poet and actor, by the time he was only in his mid-20s. While Tupac himself is portrayed by relative newcomer Demetrius Shipp Jr., Dana Gurira of The Walking Dead fame costars as his mother, Afeni Shakur, opposite actor Dominic L. Santana as Suge Knight and Jamal Woolard as Biggie Smalls - a role that he played once before on the big screen, in the 2009 biopic Notorious.
Speaking of which - for every musician and/or musical group biopic that hits it big at the box office (see Straight Outta Compton), there seem to be two or more than fail to gain much traction with mainstream audiences (a la Notorious). While Tupac fans have waited a long time for the late artist's life to be portrayed on the big screen, there isn't a whole lot of buzz surrounding All Eyez on Me - good or bad - some two months ahead of its theatrical release. Of course, that story could easily change either way, by the time the movie arrives on the scene.
Cars 3 (June 16)
The legend of Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) continues with Coco in the fall). Cars 3 picks up with Lightning at a point in his career where he's no longer the hot-rod racing star on the rise, but is instead being pushed out of the sport that he once dominated by a younger, more technologically-sophisicated generation of vehicular racers. Of course, that doesn't mean Lighting will be going quietly into the night.
Audiences were somewhat taken aback by the intense teaser for Cars 3 (showing Lightning in an accident that threatens to derail his career, once and for all), especially following the release of the decidedly light-weight Cars 2 in 2011 - a Pixar sequel driven (pardon the wording) more by Larry the Cable Guy's Mater and his wacky antics than its dramatic story developments. Jokes about a "dark and gritty" Cars movie aside, director Brian Fee does seem invested in delivering a version of Cars 3 that, similar to those moviegoers who were kids when the first Cars came out in 2006, is more mature and sophisticated than its predecessors.
That's not to say Cars 3 won't have its fair share of humor and playful characters like all Pixar movies (see Nathan Fillion's "charming" business class coupe, for example), but if the film can succeed in achieving the sort of emotional weightiness as Pixar's best work past, including its fellow threequel Toy Story 3... well, that would certainly be a twist ending for anyone who rolled their eyes, the first time they heard that Pixar was making a Cars 3 to begin with.
Transformers: The Last Knight (June 23)
Paramount's extremely-lucrative Transformers movie franchise returns this year with its fifth installment in ten years, titled Transformers: The Last Knight. The movie serves as something of a soft reboot of the Transformers property, after Paramount recruited a team of screenwriters to plot out a shared universe of Transformers spinoffs and sequels for the next several years. The Last Knight will also supposedly, maybe, be Michael Bay's final round in the director's chair on the series, after having helmed every chapter in the Autobots vs. Decepticons saga thus far.
ing the Transformers onscreen in The Last Knight is Transformers: Age of Extinction star Mark Wahlberg, along with new franchise additions Isabela Moner, Anthony Hopkins and Laura Haddock, among others. The storyline for The Last Knight is still somewhat under-wraps, though it involves the Transformers ' secret history on Earth (including, their ties to King Arthur), the reveal of the Transformers' Creators - and Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) turning against the people of Earth, for reasons that have yet to be explained in full.
Boasting some of those most impressive visuals and special effects featured in any of Bay's Transformers movies yet, The Last Knight seems poised to please the franchise's dedicated fanbase and once again hit it big at the box office - regardless of whether or not critics are onboard, this time around. Paramount is already moving forward with both a Bumblebee spinoff movie for 2018 and Transformers 6 a year after that, which does beg the question: exactly how long can this series continue to dominate the box office, in the way that it has so far?
The Beguiled (June 23)
While Sofia Coppola has only directed the Netflix special A Very Murray Christmas since the release of her true story-inspired 2013 film, The Bling Ring, the Oscar-winning auteur is back this year with her next big screen offering - The Beguiled. A cinematic adaptation of Thomas P. Cullinan's novel A Painted Devil - itself, previously adapted for the big screen in 1971 as a Clint Eastwood vehicle, also titled The Beguiled - Coppola's latest movie reunites the storyteller with her Virgin Suicides and Marion Antoinette star Kirsten Dunst, among others.
In The Beguiled, Dust and Elle Fanning (who previously costarred in Coppola's 2010 film, Somewhere) play of a school for girls in Virginia during the American Civil War, only for their lives to be forever changed when an injured Union soldier (Colin Farrell) is provided shelter by the head of the school (Nicole Kidman). Rounding out the movie's acting ensemble are such young actresses as Oona Laurence (Pete's Dragon), Angourie Rice (The Nice Guys) and Addison Riecke (The Thundermans) as of the school overseen by Kidman's character.
Kidman is already having a banner year thanks to her acclaimed performance in the HBO mini-series Big Little Lies and The Beguiled may keep her win streak alive, if the gorgeously Gothic and troubling trailers for Coppola's historical drama are any indication. The Beguiled's script itself (written by Coppola) shifts the narrative POV from its male lead to its female characters; something that may further give rise to one of Coppola's most intriguing and social boundary-pushing offerings in some time.
