In the year after Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame, the final chapter of the newest Star Wars trilogy and the Disney live-action remakes slowing down, 2020 looks to be one of the more interesting years in cinema in a long time. Sure, we do get more sequels, but this could be a year to make a big impact on the industry with original ideas.
For this article I will be making a selection of predictions for the year in film, some with Box Office results, others might be how critics respond to films.
1: Women Directors Will Have More Billion-Dollar Movies Then Men
When you look at the films coming out in 2020, there are a few films that you could handpick that will make a billion dollars: Wonder Woman 1984, Black Widow, Birds of Prey, Venom 2 and Fast & Furious 9. Here we have Patty Jenkins, Cate Shortland and Cathy Yan directing the female-led comic book movies, proving the shift in power in the blockbuster direction choices.
2: Dune Will Flop
Dune has one of the best directors in the industry in Denis Villeneuve, it has an excellent cast, brilliant source material, which does leave the question: why do I think this will flop? Well, the best reason for my theory would be just looking at how Blade Runner 2049 and Doctor Sleep have done in the last two years. This is going to be a stunning sci-fi movie that the critics will love, but the audience doesn’t seem to get attracted to the big smart sci-fi films.
3: Jungle Cruise Will Give Birth to a Mega Franchise
Jungle Cruise is the latest Disneyland Theme Park Ride movie, following in the footsteps of the Pirates of the Caribbean. Like Pirates, it has a popular (for the time) lead actor in Dwayne Johnson and standing next to him, Emily Blunt, who has proven to be one of the successful action heroines of recent years. The box office for this movie will be through the roof, which will see Disney greenlighting multiple sequels that will never live up to the level of the first one.
4: New Mutants Will Get Delayed Again
I remember going into 2018, The New Mutants was one of the films I was most looking forward to seeing. Then it got bumped to April 2019, so needless to say it made the anticipation list for 2019, only for it to get bumped twice more to the current release date of April 2020. This movie does seem to have gone through development hell, and with Disney buying Fox and Dark Phoenix failing to impress in the box office, it feels like Disney just doesn’t want anything to do with the film. The so-called re-shoots don’t seem to have happened and we are left with one of the biggest lost potential films of the decade.
5: James Wan’s Return to Horror Will be Excellent
James Wan made his name in horror directing Saw, The Conjuring 1 and 2, and Insidious 1 and 2, three of the biggest franchises in horror right now. The one thing all three have suffered from with sequels or spin-offs is James directing them, while they all make money and plenty of money, this year James returns to the Insidious franchise with The Dark Realm. Outside of the well-known franchises, he does have a secret project called Malignant which has little information about it, but an original horror with one of the best in the generation is something to get excited about.
6: Mulan Will Be the Best-Reviewed Live-Action Disney Remake
Mulan has been a live-action remake surrounded in controversy, with the lead actress lending her support to the police in Hong Kong, we saw #BoycottMulan trending worldwide and knowing super fans they won’t let this go. When judging a film, the political side should never come into question, and with trailers that look jaw-dropping, this could easily be the best-received live-action remake, one that pays proper respect to the source story too.
7: Fast and Furious 9 Will Struggle Without Dwayne Johnson
While one side of the argument is Fast and Furious 9 will continue to hit the billion-dollar mark, the other is that the franchise is starting to lose appeal, with Hobbs and Shaw not hitting that mark. If we look at other Box Office information, the American market, the second biggest in the world, always struggles to get over $200million, with China bringing most of the money. With Dwayne Johnson being the biggest appeal in the movie for the Chinese market, I am not going to say this will flop and won’t continue to make big money, it just won’t reach the levels of previous films.
8: The Delayed Sequels Will Struggle
We have seen in recent years that Blade Runner 2049 and Doctor Sleep have struggled in the Box Office; in 2020, we have Top Gun: Maverick, Bill & Ted Face the Music and Bad Boys For Life all getting released. While the Box Office isn’t going to be as saturated as in previous years, it will still be difficult for these three movies to make the impact the studios are hoping for, despite cult followings.
9: Tenet Will Be the First Original Movie to Break $1 Billion at the Box Office
The term original means no film that is or has a sequel, not based on a book or real disaster, a completely original idea that only Christopher Nolan could come up with. This movie will always get people talking because of the director and will have huge expectations to live up too. We know next to nothing about the story either, which continues the trend that Nolan will keep his stories under wraps for as long as possible and this will be no different.
10: Monster Hunter Will be the Surprise Hit of the Year
The boldest of all my statements here, Monster Hunter has the potential to be one of the unseen best or the worst movies; I can’t see it being anywhere near the middle. It comes from director Paul W. S. Anderson who did rinse over a billion dollars out of the Resident Evil franchise and once again returns him to the video game genre. His wife Milla Jovovich stars alongside Ron Perlman and Tony Jaa which should be the biggest selling point, and seriously look at that sword — we are going to have some fun watching Tony Jaa swing this around.
What are some of your predictions for 2020?
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