Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Top 10 Most Anticipated Movies of 2014

First Published:

With the holiday madness behind us and awards season in full swing, we can now look back and appreciate what a great year 2013 was for movie goers. Gravity pushed the limits of the cinema experience, Disney Animation returned to form with Frozen, our hearts were broken by films like Blue Is The Warmest Colour and 12 Years a Slave, true auteurs like the Coen brothers and Spike Jonze provided us with new visions, and we bore witness to the McConaissance with films like Mud, Dallas Buyers Club and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Now it’s time to look forward.

The Watchlist staff sat down and put together a list of our top ten most anticipated new movies of 2014. Sequels will have their own list; this is a look at the fresh, original ideas you can look forward to this year. We’re not concerned about whether the film will necessarily be a box office powerhouse or critical darling. We’re talking about the films that we think will provide the humble movie reporter with the most to talk about in 2014. Here they are, in no particular order…unless you look at the numbers:

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Idris Elba teams up with one of his Luther directors in the crime thriller No Good Deed; James Gandolfini makes his final feature film appearance in The Drop; with a script from The King’s Speech writer David Seidler, we hope Robert Downey Jr.’s next comedy-drama The Judge has a Kiss Kiss Bang Bang vibe to it; Jake Gyllenhaal and Josh Brolin star in Everest, an adaptation of the novel Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer; Ryan Gosling makes his writing and directing debut with How To Catch a Monster; Marion Cotillard makes Michael Fassbender do bad things in Justin Kurzel’s battle-heavy Macbeth.

10. Veronica Mars

The coming year will see the first fruits of the Kickstarter revolution. Early last year Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell, the creator and star of the cancelled television series Veronica Mars, took to the internet with a daring idea: ask fans to fund a film project they would like to see. The result? The fundraising campaign broke records, collecting over $2 million in less than 10 hours, and eventually picking up almost $6 million. This March fans will finally see what they paid for, and the success of the film could go a long way to changing how films get funded.

 

9. Godzilla

We’ll admit we didn’t exactly leap out of our seats over the news that another Godzilla adaptation would hit the screens this year. But after seeing the teaser trailer we’ve changed our tune. There’s still a lot of unknowns, most significantly director Gareth Edwards who only has one feature film under his belt (Monsters, 2010). But with a cast that includes Bryan Cranston and Elizabeth Olsen, and what look like some really cool effects, Godzilla might just surprise this year. If anything we’re going to watch it to find out why sky diving is the method of choice for fighting Godzilla. The film hits theatres May 16th.

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8. Foxcatcher

Once rumoured to be in the Oscar hunt this February, Foxcatcher was pushed to a 2014 release date. Directed by Bennett Miller (Moneyball) the film is based on the autobiography of Mark Schultz, the gold medal winning American wrestler. Schultz’s brother David (also an Olympic champion) was famously murdered by USA Wrestling sponsor, and paranoid schizophrenic, John du Pont. The film stars Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo as the Schultzs, but it’s a totally transformed Steve Carell as du Pont which puts the film on our list. After the release date was changed the trailer was quickly pulled by Sony Pictures Classics, but you can still see it on YouTube.

 

7. Noah

It’s the year of the Old Testament! Genesis vs. Exodus! Moses vs. Noah! Between Ridley Scott’s Exodus and Darren Aronofsky’s Noah it seems like 2014 will be the year of living biblically. While we like both directors, we’re more intrigued by the Aronofsky project, largely because giant world-destroying floods are more up our alley than wandering around the desert. Russel Crowe will star as the biblical boatman, with Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Connelly, Logan Lerman and Emma Watson supporting. On top of a great cast regular Aronofsky collaborator Clint Mansell will compose the music and Industrial Light and Magic are creating the animal kingdom, work that they described as “the most complicated rendering in the company’s history”.

 

6. The Boxtrolls

Based on Alan Snow’s fantasy novel Here Be Monsters and produced by stop-motion animation studio Laika (Coraline, ParaNorman), The Boxtrolls looks like the most intriguing family film of the coming year. That may change when we finally see something from the Pixar project Big Hero 6, but it’s nice to see something for the kids that isn’t a sequel or a reboot. The amazing craftsmanship and attention to detail that goes in to these stop motion films is mind-blowing, and is on full display in the first look at The Boxtrolls.

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5. Gone Girl

David Fincher takes a break from his Netflix series House of Cards to take another shot at adapting popular fiction. The man behind the controversial American remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo will adapt Gillian Flynn’s bestselling novel Gone Girl, set for release this October. The story of a missing woman and the husband suspected of her murder was a worldwide bestseller despite it’s controversial ending. Add Ben Affleck in the lead role and you’ve got yourself a film fit for debate. No trailer yet, but we do have this image that 20th Century Fox released. Looks like Affleck could use some help from Batman.

Gone Girl

4. The Grand Budapest Hotel

The brain behind The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom will present his newest exercise in high style with The Grand Budapest Hotel (March 7). A huge cast of characters and intriguing first trailer put this one on our list. Though we’re a little divided about Wes Anderson here at the show, there’s no denying he is certainly one of the most unique and identifiable directors in American cinema these days. With what seems like his biggest cast and widest ranging story to date, it’s looking like a grand year for Anderson fans.

 

3. Guardians of the Galaxy

We’re not even going to try to fake the nerd credentials and say we’ve read the comics, but we will say that this is the one superhero film (out of a good number of superhero films) that really has our attention this year. A talking tree? A genetically engineered raccoon mercenary? An intergalactic vigilante leading a quest for vengeance? Yeah, okay, we’ll see that. Producer Kevin Feige is taking a bit of a risk with a young director in James Gunn (Super), however Gunn has received the enthusiastic endorsement of The Avengers director Joss Whedon, who is working with him as a creative consultant. Set to be the tenth installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Guardians looks to expand that universe across the…well, across the universe.

Guardians of the Galaxy

 

2. Inherent Vice

Does anyone in Hollywood have as blemish-free a resume as Paul Thomas Anderson? The director of There Will Be Blood and Magnolia has received high praise for nearly everything he has done, and he’s hoping to continue that trend with Inherent Vice. Based on the Thomas Pynchon novel of the same name, Vice follows a Lebowski-esque private detective as he searches for his missing girlfriend through the Los Angeles beachside communities of the late 1960s. The Master star Joaquin Phoenix will collaborate with Anderson for a second time, leading a cast that includes Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio Del Toro and many more. A largely light-hearted book, it will be interesting to see how Anderson does with more comedic subject matter for the first time since Boogie Nights. The film does not yet have a release date or trailer, but we’re watching closely for this one.

Inherent Vice Cover

 

1. Interstellar

A quick look at the list of planned 2014 releases will tell you that studios are banking big on science fiction. With computer technology finally good enough to believably translate the wildest images of our imagination to the screen, cinema fans are set for a full on science fiction resurgence. But the film that is expected by many to be the poster boy of this charge has released a very understated teaser. Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar follows a group of scientists who use a previously undiscovered wormhole to travel across the universe. With the now very much in-demand Matthew McConaghey in the lead role, and a supporting cast that includes Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Casey Affleck and Michael Caine, Interstellar is shooting for the stars. We’re hoping that Nolan can get back to Inception form for this one, and bring a truly unique vision of the cosmos. That’s why Interstellar is our most anticipated film of 2014.

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