JANUARY 9

Taken 3

Right off the bat is a film that didn’t have to tweak its release date. The original “Taken” was a surprise winter mega-blockbuster, and is a good example of not necessarily viewing these months as a dumping ground for bad movies. This latest and, according the marketing, final film in the Taken series should continue the trend of packing moviegoers into theaters to see the man with “a particular set of skills” kill loads of bad guys.

JANUARY 16

Blackhat

For the first time in almost 6 years, acclaimed director Michael Mann got back behind the camera to make this cybercrime thriller. Now, while there was never an official announcement, at Comic-Con they did tease a possible Oscar eligibility release, which would have meant December at the latest. Eventually they announced this January release date instead. It looks pretty good, but I think I would find a world class hacker more believable if he didn’t have the body of, well, a Norse God.

JANUARY 23

Strange Magic

This movie’s release date was never pushed back, but it also reeks of dumping ground fodder. It’s from a story idea by George Lucas and was in production before he sold Lucasfilm to Disney. After watching the trailer, I have a feeling there must have been a clause in that deal that prevented Disney from just canning this thing forever. 

JANUARY 30

Project Almanac

If this trailer looks familiar to any faithful readers of these preview articles, it’s because it was in last year’s winter movie preview as a late February release called “Welcome to Yesterday.” It was pulled weeks before release and the title was eventually changed closer to the original title it had in the first place of “Almanac.” Not sure about the changes, but it must have been big enough to warrant the yearlong delay.

FEBRUARY 6

Jupiter Ascending

Another film that was delayed just weeks before release and this was a summer movie set for late July. They claim it was because they needed to do additional special effects work, but there was also another giant space epic called “Guardians of the Galaxy” slated to debut just a week or so after in early August. The Wachowski’s do not have the best track record lately, and this schedule shift from summer to winter doesn’t add a lot of confidence.

Seventh Son

This movie has moved so many times, it’s insane. At one point it was scheduled for February of 2013. After a lot of moving around it settled on January 2014, but then Legendary Pictures lost their distribution deal with Warner Brothers. Once Universal partnered up with Legendary to distribute the movie, they changed the dates a couple more times before landing on this one. Hopefully the effects have been updated to compensate for this film’s many years on the shelf.

FEBRUARY 13

Fifty Shades of Grey

Back to the land of rock solid release dates for a moment, this film was always intended as a Valentine’s Day weekend release. Partner that prime release date with die-hard fans of the book, as well as people just looking for a guilty pleasure movie, and I think this one is going to be a monster hit.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Matthew Vaughn dropped out of directing “X-Men: Days of Future Past” to tackle this much riskier adaptation of a lesser known comic book instead. Originally slated for an October 2014 release, the film moves to the genre friendlier winter and is good counter programming against “Shades” but is still a long shot to be a hit.

FEBRUARY 20

Hot Tub Time Machine 2

This film was pushed back a couple of months from its original Christmas 2014 release date, probably because it was going for the similar raunchy comedy audience that the better known “The Interview” was seeking. While that space on the calendar has opened back up, it’s too late to go back now. If only they had some sort of time machine…

FEBRUARY 27

Outcast

Finally on this list, in what looks to be an epic disaster of a movie, is this joint production between American, Canadian, and Chinese film companies. Because of the heavy Chinese involvement and setting, it was scheduled for a big 3D release in China first back in September, but was pulled from all screens just hours before debuting for unknown reasons. It was eventually rescheduled for January in China and a month later here in North America. 



That’s all for winter. Come back in a couple of months for my spring movie preview. With blockbusters starting to show up on more of the calendar than ever, these early months are finally getting some love. Make sure to rank the winter films you want to see below and participate in the comments if you want more in depth discussions about these movies.