The older I get, the more I find that my excitement for the upcoming summer season is dying down.
Perhaps it has to do with me growing up. Or perhaps it has to do with the movies themselves. The joke has been made for years that Hollywood has run out of ideas. Which, to be fair, is not true: There are tons of original movies being made every year. They are just at the indie theaters, and they usually don’t make any money.
But looking at the calendar for the upcoming summer it’s hard not to be caught off guard by how many movies are sequels, remakes, adaptations or reboots. In fact, the biggest movie coming out this summer that is not based on another property is Seth McFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West, which, more or less, is just a raunchier, modern-day version of Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles.
You could probably also say that Jupiter Ascending, the new Wachoswki siblings movie with Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum, is the biggest original film that is coming out this summer. And I won’t say you are wrong. But based on the fact that the movie’s decently big stars are not drawing up much buzz is a bit worrisome. Of course, it’s hard to see Tatum with his elf ears and really be compelled by the seriousness that the trailer is trying to portray. Sorry Channing, I know you must be crying next to your beautiful wife and your large pails of money, but it needed to be said.
The summer officially starts with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on May 2, and makes its way into cinema with sequel and adaptations galore until it puckers out about Aug. 22 with Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Literally, though, every big-budget movie coming out that I didn’t mention already is either a sequel or based on something that has already existed.
Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at what’s coming out this summer. There’s Godzilla, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Maleficent, Edge of Tomorrow (which is based on the awkwardly titled book All You Need is Kill), The Fault in Our Stars (which is based on the book by John … oh, you guys know that one), 22 Jump Street, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Think Like A Man Too, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Planes: Fire & Rescue, Hercules (no, not that one from January. This one has The Rock “Dwayne” Johnson), Guardians of the Galaxy, Fifty Shades of Grey (wait, I thought that was coming out on Valentine’s Day?), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Expendables 3 and The Giver (which is based on the book by… OK, you get the idea).
Let me catch my breath for a moment before I continue.
To be fair, there are some here that I am looking forward to. The last Planet of the Apes movie floored me, and I am very much looking forward to the sequel coming out July 18. Similarly, I have been waiting years to see the newest installment of Sin City since my pre-teen years, so I will be looking forward to returning to that twisted universe.
And, truthfully, the new Godzilla movie does look pretty awesome.
Yet, even for these, and a couple others that I mentioned that I am interested in (the new X-Men will either be great or a complete disaster), I can’t find myself all that excited for what is coming out.
Perhaps after a while it gets a little old, all the explosions and CGI and punching and loud noises. Maybe I just want to see an original story on the big screen. That’s how we get these sequels and reboots in the first place, right?
I’ll keep telling myself this as I wait in line to see the new Spider-Man movie, simultaneously feeding the marketing beast and seeing my vision of the future go further and further way from my view. After all, if you think this summer is too packed with sequels, look at next year’s line-up.
Will Ashton is a junior studying journalism and a writer for The Post. What movies are you looking forward to (or not looking forward to) seeing this summer? Email him at wa054010@ohiou.edu.
