The summer after Barbenheimer and the strikes, Hollywood charts a new course

LOS ANGELES (AP) Barbenheimer is a difficult act to follow.

The summer of 2023 brought a new craze for cinema, with the fortuitous counterprogramming of Barbie and Oppenheimerand surprise hits like The sound of freedomhelping the season's box office take home $4 billion for the first time since 2019. But before the industry could take a victory lap, another crisis loomed with the Hollywood double strikewhich closed most productions During months.

In the fallout, theaters lost big titles like Mission: Impossible 8 and Captain America: Brave New World until 2025. But they gained a gem in Jeff Nichols' The Bikeriders (June 21), about a club of Midwestern bikers of the 1960s, as studios moved films around. on the summer chessboard. Deadpool & Wolverine, which was once scheduled to kick off the summer season on May 3 like many Marvel films before it, now opens on July 26, waiting patiently to dominate the summer charts.

The launch weekend instead belongs to an original film about a different kind of superhero: the stuntman. The guy who falls just in timestarring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, is a real crowd-pleaser that could kickstart a season that feels like a throwback, with a full-throttle show (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Twisters), comedies (Babes), IMAX marvels (The Blue Angels) and even a Kevin Costner western.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has experienced the ups and downs of summer movies over the decades. This season he has three very different offerings on the schedule, two are fourth installments of the popular franchises Beverly Hills Cop (July 3, Netflix) and Bad Boys (June 7, theaters) and one was planned for streaming but so good tested that it obtains a theatrical release (The Young Woman and the Sea, May 31).

People just want to be entertained, Bruckheimer said. It's really about making the good films that they want to see.

Bikeriders could be one of them. It already received stellar reviews from last fall's Telluride Film Festival, praising the stars shooting for Austin Butler and Jodie Comer, and was originally scheduled for December but was pushed back when it became clear the strikes weren't going to happen. resolve in time for a press tour.

It was a bit like walking on frozen glass for three months, Nichols said. I was touring for press and trying to create that energy on my own. Let me tell you, this is not the same as Austin Butler.

Later in June, after a brilliant debut at Cannes, Kevin Costner will begin rolling out his two-part Western epic Horizon: An American Saga, set during the Civil War. And as always, there are plenty of breakouts at Sundance all summer long, from I Saw the TV Glow and Didi to Thélma and good.

Family movies also go into hyperdrive in the summer, capitalizing on long days away from school. This year, there are many, like The Garfield Movie and Despicable Me 4. But perhaps none has more anticipation behind it than Inside Out 2 (June 14, in theaters), which finds Riley then as she enters her adolescence as a new set of emotions. Party Crash Joys, including anxiety, craving, boredom and embarrassment.

This age gives us everything we need and everything we love in a Pixar film, said director Kelsey Mann.

John Krasinski also delves into the inner world of children with his ambitious live-action hybrid IF (May 17, in theaters) about left-behind imaginary friends and two humans (Ryan Reynolds and Cailey Fleming) who can still see them.

Audiences looking for the adrenaline rush of horrors and thrillers have a wide range of options, including MaXXXine, the conclusion to Ti West's Accidental Mia Goth trilogy (X and pearl ) which begins around July 4.

The aspiring goth actress traveled to Hollywood where a killer stalks Hollywood starlets during the home video boom of the 1980s. We recreated the seedy side of Hollywood in a way, hopefully charming, West said. It’s definitely a pretty crazy night at the movies.

On June 26, audiences will also be able to delve into the beginnings of A Quiet Place with a prequel set on day one starring Luptia Nyongo and Stranger Things Joseph Quinn. Later, Fede Ivarez brought his sense of horror to Alien: Romulus (August 16), which takes place between the first two.

M. Night Shyamalan is also back with a thriller set at a pop concert (Trap, August 9) and his daughter, Ishana Night Shyamalan, makes her directorial debut with the spooky Irish film The Watchers (14 June) with Dakota. Fanning.

It's very suspenseful and unexpected, Ishana said. And it's really designed for the experience of being in a theater.

The streamers also have movie and show stars, with festival favorite Hit Man, Anne Hathaway romance The Idea of ​​You, Jerry Seinfeld's star-studded pop-tart flick Unfrosted and action comedy from Mark Wahlberg/Halle Berry The Union.

There are even franchises, like Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, in which Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley reunites with his ex-daughter (Taylour Paige). It also sees the return of Justice Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser and Bronson Pinchot and adds Kevin Bacon and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

“We raised our hands to make sure the franchise was right and that we kept the integrity and fun of the original,” Bruckheimer said.

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