10 Most Anticipated Films of Winter/Spring 2018

Even though a number of award hopefuls have yet to be released throughout the United States, it's time for jabroni bloggers like myself to look ahead and see what the first four months of 2018 has in- store for the movie lovers of the world. While the schedule is a bit less crowded than usual with only 50 semi-wide-to-wide releases currently slated for release from January-April, the number of titles that I'm hotly anticipating is pretty comparable to the more densely-packed calendars of recent years. Here are the 10 films I'm most excited to check out over the course of this winter/spring.

10.Mom and Dad (1/19): A plot involving a virus that forces parents to want to murder their children + one half of the directing team behind the Crank franchise+ the guarantee of seeing Nicolas Cage in full psycho mode = Potential B-movie masterpiece.

9.The Commuter (1/12): Liam Nesson is back in transportation-based action movie game and I couldn't possibly be more excited about it. If director Jaume Collet-Serra is able to recapture the gleefully over-the-top thrills of 2014's Non-Stop, this should be a blast.

8.A Quiet Place (4/6): While I wouldn't be shocked if the final product ended up underwhelming, the teaser trailer is astonishingly tense and I'm very intrigued to see how handle Emily Blunt and John Krasinski handle horror/thriller material.

7.Tomb Raider (3/16): Alicia Vikander is an excellent choice to play Lara Croft and if the spirit of the video games is translated to the big screen this time around, this could be a rousing, Indiana Jones-esque adventure movie.

6.The Upside (3/9): Remaking The Intouchables probably isn't necessary, but I'm cautiously optimistic in Neil Burger's (Limitless, Divergent) ability to capture the immense warmth and emotional power of the French original.  

5.Death Wish (3/2): With his relegation to the direct-to-VOD/DVD D-grade action circuit over the past few years, you could make a pretty strong argument that Bruce Willis has become a shell of his former self. An Eli Roth-helmed reboot of the vigilante classic Death Wish looks like it could be just what Willis needs to remind the world of his days as one of the genre's most reliably charismatic and badass stars.  

4.Game Night (2/23): A group of friends that regularly gather for game nights stumbling onto an actual murder-mystery to solve is a phenomenal concept for an R-rated comedy and this cast of top-notch character actors (Rachel McAdams, Jason Bateman, Kyle Chandler, Lamorne Morris, Billy Magnussen, Jeffrey Wright, Jesse Plemons, Chelsea Peretti) possesses the chops to make this something truly insane and special.

3.Annihilation (2/23): The wave of bad buzz that has surrounded Annihilation following Paramount's decision to release it directly to Netflix in most countries outside of the US earlier this month hasn't effected my anticipation level in the slightest. Alex Garland's (Ex Machina) track record as both a writer and director is pretty much flawless, both trailers that have been released thus far are master classes in establishing excitement without giving too much away and I'm down to see anything that features the typically great Natalie Portman in a leading role.

2.Super Troopers 2 (4/20): Super Troopers is one of the most absurdly dumb, strange and hilarious movies I've ever seen and even though the long-awaited sequel has almost no chance of matching the original's brilliance, I'm stoked to spend another two hours with Vermont's most eccentric team of state troopers.

1.Black Panther (2/16): With an extremely talented ensemble cast (Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Ny'ongo, Daniel Kaluuya, about a half-dozen others), a director in Ryan Coogler that was behind two of the finest movies of this decade (Fruitvale Station, Creed) to-date and a badass titular hero who was easily my favorite part of Captain America: Civil War, there's absolutely no reason to believe that Black Panther shouldn't be a top-tier superhero movie. I'm going to be LIVID if the fatcats at Marvel found a way to fuck this one up.

Also Interested In:

Proud Mary (1/12)

Den of Thieves (1/19)

Maze Runner: The Death Cure (1/26)

God Particle (2/2)

The 15:17 to Paris (2/9)
Red Sparrow (3/2) 

Gringo (3/9)

Thoroughbreds (3/9)
7 Days in Entebbe (3/16)
Flower (3/16)

Pacific Rim Uprising (3/23)
Unsane (3/23)
Lean on Pete (3/30)
Blockers (4/6)

Chappaquiddick (4/6)
New Mutants (4/13)
Rampage (4/20)