A lot of movies coming out in 2018 are highly anticipated by audiences. Incredibles 2! Black Panther! Incredibles 2! Deadpool 2! Incredibles 2! Fantastic Beasts 2! Incredibles 2! But despite all this undeniable hype, there are some movies that are very not anticipated. There are some movies coming out this year that I just can't see being successful. On this list, I'm going to describe them.
But like I said, I'll probably turn out to be wrong about at least one of these predictions, if not all of them. So don't quote me. (Please. For the love of god. Don't.)
Fifty Shades Freed
Release date: For some reason, they're not releasing this on Valentine's. It's coming out on February ninth. What a missed opportunity! Someone oughta be fired.
Details: In the third movie in this increasingly-irrelevant series, Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan continue to pretend to be passionately attracted to one another, all while some kind of crime plot unfolds in the background. Also, inexplicably, Academy Award-winners Kim Basinger and Marcia Gay Harden are present.
Why will it bomb?: Well, we all know a movie doesn't have to be good to be successful. (There are, like, twelve Transformers movies.) The thing about the Fifty Shades franchise is that, in 2015, middle-aged ladies were clamoring to see it. There is no doubt that this franchise was indeed successful and relevant at one point. It had its niche. It had its audience.
But today? Nah. It's not a hot-button topic anymore. No one cares! Fifty Shades of Grey simply isn't a novelty anymore, not when you can find 55 different knockoffs wherever you look. (Fifty Shades of Black. Bared to You. Beautiful Bastard. Hey, I swear to god, I only know these names because there are 500 copies of these knockoffs in every thrift store you enter.)
In 2017, they came out with the sequel movie Fifty Shades Darker, and pretty much no one paid any attention to it. It made hundreds of millions less than the first - not a total bomb, but still, not any kind of huge success. I'm pretty sure the whole phenomenon has well passed us by.
Final thoughts: Making more redundant Fifty Shades sequels is basically the equivalent of trying to bring back Hit Clips. (Does anyone remember Hit Clips?)
Peter Rabbit
Release date: February 9.
Details: Goddddddd. It pains me to tell you that they're making a movie where Peter Rabbit is basically a hard-partying frat boy voiced by James Corden, the most obnoxious and try-hard of the late-night Jameses.
Why will it bomb?: Of all the beloved, gentle, classic children's books from the days of yore that Hollywood could turn into a worthless, raunchy kids' flick, why this? Why did you target Peter Rabbit, guys? Please explain yourselves. WHY? Who's next, Jemima fuckin' Puddle-Duck? My childhood is being trampled.
This thing looks simply horrible. Like, Doogal-level horrible. The awful trailer has already sparked huge backlash. Pretty much everyone on the planet is in agreement that we could probably generate clean, renewable power for everyone on the planet if we simply used the energy from Beatrix Potter turning in her grave.
Final thoughts: So far, Peter Rabbit makes 2011's Hop look like The Godfather.
Gnome Alone and/or Sherlock Gnomes
Release date: March 2 and March 28, respectively.
Details: For some reason, Hollywood designated 2018 as the Year of the Gnome, and so, we got TWO animated movies about gnomes. TWO. We don't need two. We don't even need ONE.
Anyway, Gnome Alone is about how garden gnomes are actually the defenders of our planet or something, and stars a ton of very mid-level actors (Becky G has an acting career, apparently; Josh Peck has returned for yet another shitty foray into animation; George Lopez will do anything for a paycheck; and also starring Demi Lovato's sister who you probably never heard of until right now).
As for Sherlock Gnomes, it's the sequel to 2011's Gnomeo and Juliet, and has officially earned the record for "sequel that was delayed for so goddamn long that it probably should never have happened in the first place." You can probably guess what it's about: Gnome Sherlock Holmes. But it also has WAY more star power than Gnome Alone, with James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Johnny Depp, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mary J. Blige, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, oh my GOD, that's like 5 Oscar winners!!!!
Why will it bomb?: They'll both bomb, and here's why: no one likes gnomes.
Gnome Alone will bomb because visually, it just looks genuinely awful, like an updated version of Fanboy & Chum Chum. (And if you never watched Fanboy & Chum Chum as a kid... pity me.) The visuals suck, the plot looks lacking, it just seems incredibly weak, and most importantly, Josh Peck's voice grates on my ears like a knife. Remember in middle school, when Josh Peck was the funniest person ever to live, and the funniest quote you could EVER spout was "I ran over Oprah!"? Yeah, those days are long over.
As for Sherlock Gnomes... well, it doesn't look quite as bad, but not by much. But anyways, why in the hell are they making a sequel to Gnomeo and Juliet just now??? Public interest in this movie waned MANY years ago. This isn't like Tron, where it was enough of a classic that they could make a successful sequel 30 years later. Nope. This is definitely no Tron.
Final thoughts: You know who wants to see these movies? Gnome one. (Geddit?!?!)
A Wrinkle in Time
Release date: March 9.
Details: For some reason, they're only just NOW seeing fit to make a movie out of the classic book A Wrinkle in Time. This one has an all-star cast, led by Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling, and it's all a bunch of science-fantasy blather. I'm not even gonna try and decipher what the hell the plot is all about. (Yes, that's right, I have not read A Wrinkle in Time. Sue my ass.)
Why will it bomb?: They've been absolutely promoting this movie out the wazoo, and yet, in my view, there's absolutely no hype for it whatsoever. The budget is $103 million, and I bet they've spent at least that much on advertising. I see a commercial for this movie every five minutes on TV. And yet... no articles. No talk. No buzz. Nothing. Moviegoers are lukewarm at best.
I generally avoid using online comments as weather vanes, but they can be a decent indicator of how a movie's going to do. (I mean, Ghostbusters 2016 was a bomb, who could've predicted that?) A Wrinkle in Time's trailer's reception was pretty telling. There's a pretty sizable dislike bar, and if you read the comments, a good half of them are ambivalent or negative. A lot of people who read the book as a kid are commenting on how this trailer bears little resemblance to the source material.
And on top of that, the marketing for this movie doesn't explain a whole lot about the storyline - they're probably relying on the idea that everyone knows the plot to the classic book. But, uh, it's 2018. The generation that's coming of age and buying movie tickets is probably the first generation in decades that didn't read A Wrinkle in Time. Way to strike when the iron is hot. This should've been made, like, 40 years ago.
Final thoughts: Basically, the huge budget compounded with the utter lack of hype and interest make this movie's failure a foregone conclusion. It's the new Tomorrowland.
Super Troopers 2
Details: For some godforsaken purpose, they've finally decided to make a sequel to 2001's flaky, forgettable Super Troopers.
Why will it bomb?: No one ever wanted this. No one asked for this.
Seriously, listen to me. Absolutely no one wants to see this.
Final thoughts: Super Troopers' inexplicable cult following can fuck off. This movie was bad. You all know it. Stop lying to yourselves.
Untitled Cloverfield sequel
Details: I can't give you too much accurate information, because this potential movie is floundering like a survivor in the icy waters near the wreck of the Titanic. Originally it was called God Particle, and was supposed to be about a bunch of astronauts (Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, Aksel Hennie, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and others) who are stranded in space after Earth disappears.
But that's not true anymore. The title has changed, the plot has changed, and apparently this JJ Abrams-produced movie is turning out to be such a disaster that Paramount doesn't even want to release it anymore, and have sold it to Netflix. Just for some context: originally, "untitled Cloverfield sequel" was originally supposed to come out over a year ago. And somehow, in all this mess, this movie has a tenuous connection to 2008's Cloverfield.
Why will it bomb?: I mean, just look at the facts above. There's so much pointing to the fact that this movie is a trainwreck, or perhaps a succession of ever-larger trainwrecks.
For some weird reason, instead of releasing a direct sequel to 2008's mildly-successful shaky-cam monster movie Cloverfield (WHICH IS WHAT I WANT, HOLLYWOOD, WHY DON'T YOU LISTEN TO ME?), Abrams et al. have decided to instead create a tenuous "shared universe" of science fiction movies that have next-to-nothing to do with each other. 10 Cloverfield Lane was the first attempt, and it was only a few weeks before its release that we found out it had anything to do with Cloverfield. And it was fantastic, and did well at the box office, and was just a huge success. But the more I'm hearing about this third movie, the more I'm thinking that 10 Cloverfield Lane was a huge fluke. A happy accident. A mistake.
My reasons for this sequel's failure are as follows, therefore: 1) The constantly moved-back release date. 2) The fact that it's supposed to come out in two months and we still know fuck-all about it. 3) The fact that Paramount lost faith that it could have a successful theatrical release.
My last hope for the movie formerly known as God Particle is that all this nonsense has simply been a purposeful distraction from the real truth: that this is an actual, real-live, direct sequel to Cloverfield. Maybe they're pulling a 10 Cloverfield Lane again, and they'll only reveal the truth a little while before the movie's release. Please, JJ Abrams. Don't let me down.
Oh, and by the way, despite the trainwreck that is Cloverfield 3... apparently Cloverfield 4 is not only on its way, it's already been filmed. What the FUCK is going on. I hate this. (Apparently it's supposed to be called Overlord, but I have no doubt that they'll change it to Cloverlord.)
Final thoughts: Please just make a goddamn sequel to Cloverfield already.
EDIT: Well. In a turn of events which shocked but not surprised me (if that makes sense), Netflix has done a complete 180 and released The Cloverfield Paradox today on Feb 4th, directly after the Super Bowl, out of literally fucking nowhere. My prediction that they were pulling a 10 Cloverfield Lane has come true. Thank you, JESUS. Since it's being released on Netflix and is evidently not the trainwreck I thought it was, maybe it doesn't belong on this list after all. Sorry, Bad Robot!
EDIT AGAIN: LOL, never mind.
Mowgli
Details: Here's one that belongs on my twin films list. Barely two years after Disney's wildly successful The Jungle Book remake came out, an even darker, gritter version is arriving in theatres. And the whole movie has tons of motion capture, so guess who's going to direct? Andy Serkis, His Majesty the Grand Poobah of Motion Capture. Of course.
Why will it bomb?: Look, I don't want to accuse this movie of ripping off Disney, because that's simply not what happened - Mowgli was first announced in 2012, while Disney's reboot started development in 2013. So really, it's Disney doing the ripping-offing.
Nonetheless, I have no doubt that Mowgli will suffer due to the existence of its contemporary. I mean, everyone is Jungle Booked-out at this point. We're tired. We've had enough. After the enormous triumph of 2016's The Jungle Book, I'm pretty sure no one is game for a random tagalong twin film.
To be honest, though, Mowgli is the one movie on this list that I'm least certain about its failure. It's just a gut feeling, but I could very well be wrong. We'll see in October.
Final thoughts: Originally this was called Jungle Book: Origins. Thank GOD they changed it.
Mortal Engines
Details: Based off the single most bleak and depressing book series I've ever read in my life, Mortal Engines is about a post-apocalyptic world in which cities can drive around and eat other cities (it's as cool as it sounds), and Peter Jackson has been talking about making this series into a movie for the better part of a decade.
Why will it bomb?: Mortal Engines is honestly a movie that should never have been made. As someone who's read the books, general audiences are never going to embrace this. It's just not going to happen. And I know what you're thinking: "Hey, even if it bombs, at least we'll get a cool weird movie out of it, right?" Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Jackson's impressively faithful vision that he applied to Lord of the Rings is going to translate to this book series. Despite the inventive premise, many think the first trailers for Mortal Engines look bland and unoriginal.
And not to drone on about book-to-movie differences, but this one really gets me. The main character Hester - a horrible bitch who may be the most unlikable YA heroine I have ever had the pleasure to read about - has been changed vastly from the books. The author describes her as such: "A terrible scar ran down her face from forehead to jaw, making it look like a portrait that had been furiously crossed out. Her mouth was wrenched sideways in a permanent sneer, her nose was a smashed stump and her single eye stared at him out of the wreckage.” Damn, so this girl is UGLY, right? And Peter Jackson is not historically afraid to have ugly characters in his movies, right? I'm SO excited to see what prosthetics they've applied—
Oh.
Final thoughts: Too bland to appeal to sci-fi geeks, too weird to seduce normies, and too divergent from the books to attract fans, Mortal Engines is pretty much doomed. Although I wouldn't mind seeing it myself.
Honorable mentions go out to these films:
Ready Player One. Again, just a gut feeling - I feel like this one is too expensive to be a success, despite the Spielberg pedigree.
Early Man. I didn't want to include it on this list because it's goddamn Aardman and I'll never say a bad word about them, but come on, Early Man has failure written all over it.
Annihiliation. Everything about this movie's weird-ass marketing campaign has me saying "Huh?"
Pacific Rim Uprising. The first one wasn't exactly a smash success, and the hype seems way lower for this sequel.
Rampage. Albino King Kong, starring The Rock? I want this to succeed based on the bonkers plot alone, but c'mon, it looks terrible.
Alita: Battle Angel. This one looks too weird to succeed, never mind the fact that it's based on some random manga that no one has ever heard of. AND it's directed by Robert Rodriguez. But the trailer has 7 million views, so I could be wrong.
The Spy Who Dumped Me. How come female-led spy comedies are in such vogue nowadays? If Keeping Up with the Joneses couldn't succeed, this one can't either.
Johnny English 3. I mean... see above. I'm still recovering from the fact that they made a second one, and now a third one is coming out? All the best, I guess.
And that's the list! Just as a postscript, I'm going to review this list over the course of the year, and make little posts whenever a movie comes out and I'm proven right (or wrong). So stay tuned.
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