New Looks At ‘Shark Night 3D,’ ‘Horrible Bosses,’ ‘Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes’ & ‘Crazy Stupid Love’
Summer movie season is a just a couple of weeks away, kicking off with “Thor” and in order to get you prepped, EW just released their massive summer preview issue with a boatload of new images (print edition; not yet online) from a number of films that will be gracing screens over the next new months. So here are some fresh looks at the films that will have us queuing up at the multiplex this summer.
Easily the film with biggest mystery around it is J.J. Abrams‘ “Super 8.” His homage to the Amblin Entertainment films isn’t too easily sellable with no pre-packaged brand/franchise or recognizable stars, but no matter. Early trailers have thrilled and industry types have been buzzing about the footage Paramount has previewed to stoke the flames. Starring Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney, Gabriel Basso, Noah Emmerich, Ron Eldard, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee and Zach Mills, the ‘70s Ohio-set film will center on the strange events that occur following a train crash with a pack of kids who investigate and find out more. All will be revealed on June 10th.
At this point, the only real question about “X-Men: First Class” is just how big of a summer blockbuster it will be. While the film is coming in under a remarkably tight deadline, Matthew Vaughn‘s movie easily looks like the most sophisticated of the comic adaptation lot and it’s powered by a top-shelf cast. Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Oliver Platt, Caleb Landry, Lucas Till, Edi Gathegi, Jason Flemyng, Zoe Kravitz and Kevin Bacon, mutants go back to the 1960s on June 3rd.
The latest full-length trailer for “Cowboys And Aliens” debuted last week during “American Idol” which should tell you how keen (and somewhat nervous) Universal is about Jon Favreau‘s high concept sci-fi/western mashup. They’re two genres that traditionally haven’t exactly been the easiest sells at the box office and tend to keep women away, but the general consensus was that the trailer — if not a grand slam — was a solid triple and a couple more refined spots in the lead-up to the July 29th release date, should get asses in the seats. The film features a star-studded cast including Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Olivia Wilde, Noah Ringer, Walton Goggins, Keith Carradine and Ana de la Reguera and tells the story of a group of Apache Indians and Western settlers in Arizona who must lay their differences aside when an alien spaceship crash lands in their city.
“Zombieland” director Ruben Fleischer returns with “30 Minutes or Less” and with Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, Nick Swardson and Michael Peña leading the way and with a script by the Black List-approved Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan, our expectations are high. The film centers on two white trash fledgling criminals (McBride and his lapdog lieutenant Swardson) who kidnap a slacker pizza delivery driver (Eisenberg) and force him — by ticking bomb — to rob a bank within 30 minutes. Ansari plays Chet, the history teacher best friend of Eisenberg’s character who has his shit together, but gets roped into the kidnapping. Peña plays a gangster character who becomes a significant problem in the second act of the screenplay. A reader recently send in a report from a early screening they attended, and described the film as “a short, tight, lightly plotted movie” that runs about 80 minutes. He also told us “the two main ‘buddy’ groups, Eisenberg/Ansari and McBride/Swardson, have very little interaction with each other. The movie boils down to those two groups going back and forth in separate scenes that almost feel ad-libbed a lot of the time. Ansari, Swardson and Pena all kill it. Really, really funny. Ansari is hard to take seriously (his acting is so-so) but he is really hysterical.” So yeah, we’re looking forward to this — the film hits on August 12th. 
What can we say about “Shark Night 3D“? We’re kind of bummed director David R. Ellis didn’t get his way and have the film named “Untitled 3D Shark Thriller” which would have been awesome. But other than that, the ‘who-they?’ cast includes Sara Paxton, Chris Carmack, Katharine McPhee, Joel Moore and Chris Zylka and the plot should be self-explanatory. It hits theaters on September 14th. Stay out of the water.
Hate your job? “Horrible Bosses” might just be the cinematic diversion you’re looking for. The film centers on three friends (Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis) who enlist the help of a scam artist called Motherfucker Jones (Jamie Foxx) to help murder their awful bosses (Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Aniston) when they realize they are standing in the way of their happiness. Sounds totally great, and we hope it lives up to its wickedly dark premise. Seth Gordon (“The King Of Kong“) directs the film that will land on July 8th. Um, trailer please?
Oof. The first trailer for the idiotically named “The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes” landed with all the grace of a primate throwing its feces against a wall. The entire premise of the film was always a tricky affair and the seriousness of it seems somewhat disastrous. If there is any tentpole this summer that needs a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor this one is it. Directed by Rupert Wyatt—who made a splash with the Brit prison pic “The Escapist”—the film stars James Franco, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Andy Serkis and Brian Cox in an origin story that will chronicle the engineering feat that advanced intelligence in apes and set off the war for species supremacy. After being shuffled a few times — we’re beginning to see why the studio couldn’t settle on a date — the film will hit on August 5th.
While the concept might not be new — a man learns how to the woo the ladies thanks to an experienced, younger lothario — the winning ensemble including Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Julianne Moore and Marisa Tomei completely sold us in the first trailer for “Crazy Stupid Love“. Directed by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra (the duo behind “Bad Santa” and “I Love You Phillip Morris”) and written by Dan Fogelman (“Cars,” “Bolt”), the picture centers on Cal (Carell), whose life unravels while he deals with a marital crisis (his adulteress wife Moore and her fling, Bacon) and tries to manage his relationship with his children. He’s taken under the wing of a smooth-talking ladies’ man (Gosling) who helps him regain his confidence while also falling head-over-heels in love with Hannah (Stone). Yeah, the film juggles quite a few narrative threads, but it looks to be handled with a light and winning touch. We can’t wait — it hits on July 29th.
