MAY 2

A lot of moviegoers got bent out of shape about Sony rebooting the Spider-Man series less than a decade after Sam Raimi’s first movie, but I look at it like the multiple comic books that come out focused on the same character but with slightly different universes. I think the first movie did a good job establishing the characters, now it’s up to the sequel to prove that they can build further on this cinematic universe.

MAY 16

Another attempt to turn cinema’s king of the monsters into something mainstream American audiences will consume. Anything would be better than the 1998 Roland Emmerich version, but I think this film will strive to do much more than just top that movie.  If the trailer is any indication, it’s off to a good start.

MAY 23

Bryan Singer returns to directing the X-Men franchise in this combination of the elements we’ve seen in the other Marvel mutant film exploits. They are also taking on one of the biggest comic book storylines ever. Hopefully they give it a better treatment than they did the Dark Phoenix storyline in X-Men 3.

MAY 30

Hot off the success of “Ted” from a couple of summers ago, Seth McFarlane returns to the big screen in what I’m assuming is a purposefully anachronistic western with plenty of comedy and action elements. McFarlane doesn’t have any cartoon or CGI characters with funny voices to hide behind, so this will be a true test to see if he can cross over as a live action comic actor that people will pay to see.

Maleficent 

The first film in Disney’s live action reboots of their classic animated movies. Of course this one comes with a twist because you can’t have one of the biggest movie stars on the planet as just a villain and nothing more. I’m definitely getting a sense of the “Wicked” influence on their retelling of the classic Sleeping Beauty story.

JUNE 6

It’s hard not to make the “Ground Hog Day” comparison so I’ll get it out of the way right off the bat. The thing I was more reminded of was the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode where the Enterprise would keep getting destroyed, resetting a time loop again and again until they figured out how to stop it. Not sure I’m going to pay to watch a Tom Cruise sci-fi movie with a similar plot, but at least the trailer reminded me of that fantastic piece of television.

JUNE 13

I love that this trailer sums up my feelings about the 21 Jump Street reboot in the opening scene. I had no idea this would become a thing, but now that there is a sequel maybe I should check out the original. Coincidentally, it shares some plot elements with the Seth Rogen comedy “Neighbors” which opens in May.

How to Train Your Dragon 2

The critically acclaimed and Oscar nominated 2010 animated film gets a sequel this summer as well. That year it lost out on the Oscar to the also phenomenal “Toy Story 3.” This looks to be a lighter year for animated films so maybe it finally gets the awards recognition that the original movie could not. Plus the dragons are modeled after cats. What’s not to like about that?

JUNE 27

Admittedly I haven’t seen a Transformers movie since the first one. The trailer for this fourth film in the franchise doesn’t instill a lot of confidence that I should hop back in now, but these movies make a fortune at the box office, so obviously they have some huge fans. I do think Mark Wahlberg is an upgrade from Shia LaBeouf at least.


That does it for the biggest releases of summer’s first half.  I had to leave a few movies off the list but we can always discuss those in the comments section below. And don’t forget to rank these films in order of which ones you’re most anticipating checking out over the next couple of months. See you in July for part 2!