Lady Gaga in Joker: Folie à Deux, Nicolas Cage in Dream Scenario and Anya Taylor-Joy in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Photo: Warner Bros / Lady Gaga / A24
Hollywood hit a major speed bump in the past year, with the people who write and appear in films and television taking a stand for a fair share and assurances for the future.
But even though there might be fewer superheroes flying in over the horizon, the movie theatres are still offering a typically wide variety of delights in 2024, including a return to the world of Mad Max, more career-best work from Paul Giamatti, and a return to the mud and blood of 19th century Aotearoa.
(Note: all release dates are for New Zealand and are subject to change, because things like that have a way of happening.)
Blockbusting sequels and franchises
After more than a decade of absolute dominance, superhero movies have been looking shaky in the past year - Marvel's Ant-Man and Captain Marvel movies both failed to really connect, while the long and brightly sordid saga of the DC Universe came to an equally damp end with the Blue Beetle, Shazam and Aquaman films.
So while the Joker sequel Folie à Deux, featuring a returning Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga as a new Harley Quinn, is due late in the year - currently sitting on a 3 October release date - audiences will have to wait until 2025 for new Batman and Superman movies.
And Marvel is largely taking a break in the next 12 months - although it has four films scheduled for 2025 - and will only be represented at the cinema by Deadpool 3, with Hugh Jackman smashing his promise that Logan wold be his last Wolverine film and teaming up for some slice-and-dice action with Ryan Reynolds.
Nobody is really sure if the world needs Dakota's Johnson's Madame Web (14 Feb) or Aaron Taylor Johnson's Kraven the Hunter (29 August) - both will be hoping to be more Venom than Morbius, even if they're all taking place in the same universe of Spider-Man characters without Spider-Man.
And if you need more unashamed epic in your cinematic diet, the slightly delayed Dune: Part Two (29 Feb) will see Timothée Chalamet's dusty odyssey continuing with more metaphysical musings amid the interstellar revolutions, while Godzilla and King Kong are back to smash the shit out of the world in The New Empire on 11 April.
There is also more Ghostbusters, with Frozen Empire on 28 March, while Ryan Gosling goes for full on charm mode in The Fall Guy (2 May), director David Leitch's ode to stuntmen everywhere. And it's never too late for some films, with decades-late sequels also on the cards - Twisters (18 July) and Beetlejuice 2 (5 Sept), with Tim Burton, Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder all returning, while a new iteration of The Karate Kid (26 Dec), will celebrating 40 years since the original.
And if your tastes run to the post-apocalyptic, there is the origin of the silent devastation of A Quiet Place with Day One (27 June), while Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes are set to debut on NZ screens on 23 May.
Furiosa has legendary Australian director George Miller back behind the wheel of the world of Mad Max to tell the story of Furiosa, last seen as Charlize Theron in 2015's Fury Road. Expect grunty vehicles smashing into each other at high velocities, mangled English and the dustiest dust. Meanwhile, the latest entry in the Planet of the Apes series takes another leap into the future, coming one step closer to the world that Charlton Heston will crash into in 1968.
Start with some art
If you'd rather have fewer explosions and Chris Hemsworths, there are still plenty of films with weighty themes and quirky angles are coming down the pipeline, as Aotearoa receives the usual load of Oscar-worthy content in the first few months of the year.
Dream Scenario - with a balding Nicholas Cage crashing into everybody's dreams and nightmares - and the highly anticipated Poor Things from director Yoros and Emma Stone are both out on New Year's Day (1 Jan), while Michael Mann's Ferrari (4 Jan), Sofia Coppola's Priscilla (1 February), Bong Joon-ho's Mickey 17 (28 Mar) and Alex Payne's The Holdovers (11 Jan) - with Paul Giamatti raising the bar yet again in another career-best role - bring some directorial might to the start of the year.
For deep thoughts about the human condition, The Zone of Interest (22 Feb) from director Jonathan Glazer promises to be the most quietly confrontational film of the year, set in a delightful country house over the wall from Auschwitz, while Carol director Todd Haynes is back with Natalie Portman and Julianna Moore in May December (15 Feb).
Further meaty cinema can be expected in Matteo Garrone's The Captain (28 March), featuring two young men leaving Senegal for Europe; and in Luca Guadagnino's Challengers (24 April), a love triangle tennis drama starring Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist.
Much of the world cinema that will come to NZ screens in 2024 doesn't have a release date yet, but cinemagoers can get a taste of international flavours with Perfect Days (25 Jan), starring Japanese icon Koji Yakusho; Riceboy Sleeps (1 Feb) with a Korean single mother building a new life in 1900s Canada; Charcoal (8 Feb), with a family in São Paulo accidentally welcoming a drug lord into their home; and Noryang: Deadly Sea (4 Jan), set during the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1598.
In the general 'modern life is rubbish but we can deal with it' genre, there is the romantic fantasy All Of Us Strangers (18 Jan), starring Andrew Scoot and Paul Mescal; three British teenage girls going on holiday in How to Have Sex (15 Feb); and US road film Drive-Away Dolls (22 Feb), directed by Ethan Coen.
But when it comes to idiosyncratic journeys right inside the human heart, New Zealand still does it as good as anybody else, and Loren Taylor's The Moon is Upside Down - featuring a mail-order bride, a numbed anaesthetist and an empty nester - is due out on 14 March.
History and other true stories
Aotearoa is also very good at producing movies set in the mud and blood of its 19th-century history, and Lee Tamihori's The Convert (25 April) looks to add to that tradition with Guy Pearce as a lay preacher with a violent past who gets caught in the middle of a blood feud between Māori tribes.
Maybe don't expect too much in the way of historical accuracy, but there are bound to be loads of beheadings and disembowellings instead, when the long-gestating Gladiator 2 from director Ridley Scott and staring Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington comes out on 21 November.
Two incredible singers who left us far too soon will be spotlighted this year, with Bob Marley: One Love (14 Feb), with Kingsley Ben-Adir bringing the reggae superstar to life, while the story of Amy Winehouse, as played by Marisa Abela, will be told in Back to Black (25 April).
More true stories (with a fair bit of embellishment) due in 2024 include The Iron Claw (25 Jan), the tragic tale of the Von Erich wrestling dynasty; Wicked Little Letters (21 March), the story of some extremely vicious letter writing in 1920s England; Freud's Last Session (28 March), featuring Anthony Hopkins as the famed psychologist taking on Matthew Goode's CS Lewis over the existence of God; and The Great Escaper (7 March), with Michael Caine as an old soldier making one last march.
Action!
But who needs existential navel gazing when you've got Jason Statham as a covert secret organisation operative kicking all sorts of arse in The Beekeeper (11 Jan) from director David Ayer, while Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell and a very grumpy cat also get up to superspy shenanigans in Argylle (1 Feb).
The welcome trend of women action films also continues this year with John Wick spin-off Ballerina with Ana de Armas out 6 June, with Kristen Stewart rocking the mullet in the scuzzy-looking Love Lies Bleeding (14 March).
Crime comes to the cinema in the form of Force of Nature (8 Feb), the follow-up to The Dry with a returning Eric Bana; and in the ever reliable Robert De Niro, appearing in director Barry Levinson mobster film Alto Knights (14 Nov).
Screams in the multiplex
Horror fans can kick the year off with Night Swim (4 Jan), as a dip in a pool at night goes horribly wrong, before another evil creature lurks in the more traditional basement of a run-down pub in Baghead (22 Feb).
Speak No Evil (8 August), a US version of the Danish horror starring James McAvoy, is perfect for viewers who find having to read subtitles to be the ultimate terror; Horrorscope (4 July) finds morbid misfortune in the star signs; Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (29 Feb) is fairly self explanatory; and The First Omen (4 April) is yet another prequel to a horror classic, although at least this one comes with some bonus Bill Nighy.
Imaginary (14 March), the latest high concept from Blumhouse Productions, has an evil stuffed bear, and should really not be confused with John Krasinski's IF (16 May), where imaginary friends from your childhood aren't going to kill you, but are just really sad about stuff.
Paranoid thriller You'll Never Find Me is keeping its secrets under warps until release on 7 March, and who knows what's up with M Night Shamalayan's latest Trap but it's out 1 August, with his the director's daughter Ishana getting in on the family business of things that go bump in the night with The Watchers (6 June).
Singing it loud and proud
The promotional trailers for new versions of Mean Girls (18 Jan) and The Color Purple (25 Jan) have done a reasonable job of hiding the fact that they're actually musicals, even though the genre is the very definition of crowd-pleasing, and bolted onto existing properties can only help get the feet tapping.
They're certainly not the only song and dance routines coming down the line, with Greatest Days - a British film based on the Take That jukebox musical out on 28 March, and the long-awaited film adaption of monster musical Wicked set to premiere on 28 November.
You know, for kids
Four beloved animated series are due for new instalments this year, with Kung Fu Panda 4 (4 April), Inside Out 2 (13 June) and Despicable Me 4 (20 June), while Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is set to bounce onto screens at a typically furious pace on 26 December.
There is also The Jungle Bunch World Tour (18 Jan) and Harold and the Purple Crayon (19 Sept), and if the kids need more CGI animals making snide comments, there is Combat Wombat: Back 2 Back (29 Feb); 200% Wolf (25 April); and the king of anthropomorphic animals: The Garfield Movie (30 May.)
The best is still to come
There is always, of course, a very good chance the best film you'll see all year isn't on this list - it may not have a release date yet and might not even be finished. But there is sure to be something for everybody.