The biggest, hottest blockbuster movie season of the year is nearly upon us as the studios prepare to unleash one huge tentpole event picture after another during the summer. We’ve got you covered as we list all the biggest releases the multiplex has to offer with our Summer 2017 Movie Preview, which you can check out below.
The May through August months bring no shortage of superpowered action as Spider-Man, Wonder Woman and the Guardians of the Galaxy all return to the big screen. The franchise fun continues with more Transformers, more Aliens, more Cars, more Pirates and more of those damn dirty Apes than you can shake a stick at. You’ll also find the usual summer counter-programming as well, including fun comedies and even a few dramas, along with a few potential franchise-starters like Stephen King‘s The Dark Tower.
Which big summer 2017 movie is the one you’re looking forward to the most? Which ones do you definitely plan to see in the theater? Let us know in the comments below!
Summer 2017 Movie Preview
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (May 5)
Marvel Studios kicks the summer off with a bang as the galaxy's biggest bunch of a-holes returns to do something good, something bad, or maybe a little of both. Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel return, with Kurt Russell brought into the fold as Peter Quill's dad Ego the Living Planet. James Gunn is back behind the camera and he wrote the script as well.
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King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (May 12)
Guy Ritchie attempts a kinetic retelling of the Arthurian legend, with Charlie Hunnam as the title English legend who draws the sword from the stone. Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Aidan Gillen, Eric Bana and Jude Law round out the cast.
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Snatched (May 12)
After the success of Trainwreck, Amy Schumer uses her second comedy vehicle to team up with Goldie Hawn as a mother/daughter pair who get kidnapped in South America during a vacation gone wrong. Christopher Meloni, Ike Barinholtz, Joan Cusack and Wanda Sykes also star.
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Alien: Covenant (May 19)
Director Ridley Scott returns once again to the Alien franchise he founded in 1979 with this prequel/sequel to 2012's Prometheus. This time around, a colony ship of settlers led by Daniels (Katherine Waterston) lands on a world where the android David (Michael Fassbender) has been up to some stuff since the last movie. Xenomorphs are involved.
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Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (May 19)
Original lead Zachary Gordon is replaced by Jason Ian Drucker playing the title wimpy kid, Greg Heffley. The rest of the cast is new too, with '90s throwback faces Alicia Silverstone and Tom Everett Scott playing the mom and dad as the family goes on a disaster-laden road trip.
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Everything, Everything (May 19)
Based on a 2015 novel of the same name by Nicola Yoon, this YA romance stars Amandla Stenberg (The Hunger Games) and Nick Robinson (Jurassic World) is kind of a modern "Boy in the Plastic Bubble" type story. Stenberg plays a sheltered girl with intense allergies who falls for the boy next door, played by Robinson.
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Baywatch (May 25)
The '90s TV sensation that gave us David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson in slow-motion makes its way to the big screen with lots of sand, skin and... silliness? Yes, Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron are taking a page or two from the 21 Jump Street movie playbook and making this a self-aware comedy. Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach and Priyanka Chopra also star.
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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (May 26)
After a few years down and out at the box office, Johnny Depp seeks to plunder more gold from his standby franchise. This time around, Captain Jack tangles with an old anti-pirate adversary played with undead fury by Javier Bardem. Jack's old mates Geoffry Rush, Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightley will all be back as well.
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Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (June 2)
Based on the series of children's novels by Dav Pilkey, this animated film from DreamWorks follows two elementary school students voiced by Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch who somehow hypnotize their principal (Ed Helms) into becoming the title superhero.
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Wonder Woman (June 2)
Gal Gadot teams up with a dashing young World War I pilot named Steve Trevor to bring an early end to the War to End All Wars. Along the way we see her home Amazonian island of Themyscira. Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, David Thewlis and Danny Huston are also featured in this fourth film in the ever-evolving DC Extended Universe.
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The Mummy (June 9)
Universal attempts to jump-start their monsters universe of interconnected films with the help of some star wattage courtesy of Tom Cruise. The superstar plays a soldier who awakens Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) after a couple thousand years of holding a grudge against humanity. The action-horror hybrid co-stars Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance and Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll.
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All Eyez on Me (June 16)
This biopic of hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur chronicles his life and legacy. Tupac dead ringer Demetrius Shipp, Jr. plays the artist as he rises to superstardom, only to be slain at the age of 25. Kat Graham, Lauren Cohan, Hill Harper and Danai Gurira co-star.
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Cars 3 (June 16)
Pixar's automotive franchise kicks it to high gear with the return of Owen Wilson's Lightning McQueen. This time he's being outpaced by a high tech racing competitor named Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), but can Lightning attempt a comeback?
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Rough Night (June 16)
The all-star female cast of Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, and Zoë Kravitz star as college friends who reunite 10 years later for a wild bachelorette party in Miami. However, when they accidentally kill a male stripper, their attempts to cover it up help them bond again.
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The Book of Henry (June 16)
Director Colin Trevorrow decided to squeeze in this small scale family drama between his duties on Jurassic World and Star Wars: Episode IX. It tells the story of two oddball kids (Jaeden Lieberher and Jacob Tremblay) who recruit their mother (Naomi Watts) in a scheme to save the girl next door from an abusive stepfather.
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Transformers: The Last Knight (June 23)
Director Michael Bay returns once again to the franchise he started a decade ago. This time Mark Wahlberg's Cade Yeager and a plucky young kid named Izabella (Isabela Moner) team up with Bumblebee to save the Transformers once Optimus Prime goes rogue. Josh Duhamel and John Turturro also return.
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Baby Driver (June 28)
Fan-fav director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs the World) is behind this car chase jukebox musical heist movie about a getaway driver named Baby (Ansel Elgort), who turns on the gang led by Kevin Spacey's baddy. Lily James, Jon Bernthal, Eiza González, Jon Hamm and Jamie Foxx also star in the film, which earned rave reviews at SXSW.
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Despicable Me 3 (June 30)
This threequel from Illumination Entertainment finds Gru (Steve Carell) teaming up with his own brother Dru to steal a diamond from a child star gone bad. Kristen Wiig and South Park's Trey Parker also provide voices.
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The House (June 30)
Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler star as a couple who decide to start an illegal casino in their suburban home after they wipe out their daughter's college fund. The League's Jason Mantzoukas co-stars in the high concept comedy.
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Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7)
Marvel Studios' second release of the summer is their first crack at a feature-length Spider-Man adventure, starring their Captain America: Civil War Peter Parker played by Tom Holland. The story features The Vulture (Michael Keaton) as the heavy and Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man as an ally, but it is said to take its tone more from John Hughes' high school comedies than a superhero movie. Don't worry, though, there will be plenty of superheroics and wall crawling.
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War for the Planet of the Apes (July 14)
The ape leader Caesar (Andy Serkis) heats up his battle against humankind when he takes a ragtag group of trusted apes on a journey to kill a ruthless Colonel (Woody Harrelson) in the jungle. If that sounds like this franchise is taking a page or twelve from Apocalypse Now that's because... they are?
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Wish Upon (July 14)
Joey King (The Conjuring, White House Down) stars in this horror film as a high school student who discovers a magical box that grants her deepest desires. Unfortunately, as her fortune increases so does a body count of her friends and classmates.
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Dunkirk (July 21)
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Trilogy, Interstellar) shot this World War II epic in 65mm on location in France where the legendary title battle took place. Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh and Cillian Murphy are the most recognizable names in a cast made up mostly of young unknowns.
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Girls Trip (July 21)
Regina Hall, Jada Pinkett Smith, Tiffany Haddish and Queen Latifah play besties who attend the annual Essence Music Festival in New Orleans together and discover their wild sides. Expect lots of female bonding and emotion in the film from The Best Man Holiday director Malcolm D. Lee.
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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (July 21)
Luc Besson heads back to the same trippy, colorful sci-fi territory he explored twenty years ago for The Fifth Element, except now he has five times the budget! Based on the popular Eurocomics by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières, it follows secret agents Valerian and Laureline (Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne) as they attempt to save the ancient utopian civilization of the title.
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Atomic Blonde (July 28)
Charlize Theron teams up with John Wick co-director David Leitch for a Cold War-era action movie that positions the Oscar-winning actress as a kind of female James Bond. Her MI6 spy has to infiltrate Berlin with the help of a partner played by James McAvoy in order to prevent the murder of more intelligence officers. Hardcore ass-kicking ensues.
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The Emoji Movie (July 28)
T.J. Miller, James Corden, Anna Faris, Patrick Stewart, Steven Wright, Maya Rudolph, and Jennifer Coolidge make up the voice cast of this animated take on the emojis you use every day on your cell phone, Facebook, etc. The story follows Gene (Miller), a multi-expressional emoji on a journey to become a normal emoji.
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Detroit (August 4)
Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) directs this period drama which takes place during the infamous Detroit riots of 1967. John Boyega stars as a cop who gets embroiled in the racially-charged madness. Will Poulter, Jack Reynor, John Krasinski and Anthony Mackie are also featured in the ensemble cast.
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The Dark Tower (August 4)
Stephen King's epic literary horror fantasy series finally makes its way to the big screen as the gunslinger Roland (Idris Elba) pursues the evil sorcerer known as the Man in Black/Walter (Matthew McConaughey) across dimensions with the aid of a young boy named Jake (Tom Taylor).
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Annabelle: Creation (August 11)
A prequel to the 2014 prequel to 2013's The Conjuring, this spin-off film tells the story behind the scary title doll. It focuses on the creator of Annabelle, a dollmaker and his wife whose daughter died and possessed his creation.
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The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature (August 11)
This sequel to 2014's The Nut Job sees Surly (Will Arnett) and the rest of the animals band together to prevent a crooked mayor (Bobby Moynihan) from bulldozing their park. Gabriel Iglesias, Jeff Dunham, Katherine Heigl, Maya Rudolph and Jackie Chan also provide voices.
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Logan Lucky (August 18)
After a four-year "retirement" from theatrical features, director Steven Soderbergh returns with this caper movie set during a Memorial Day NASCAR race. The star-studded cast includes Channing Tatum, Daniel Craig, Adam Driver, Hilary Swank, Seth MacFarlane, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Katherine Waterston and Sebastian Stan.
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The Hitman’s Bodyguard (August 18)
Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson play a bodyguard and his hitman nemesis, respectively, who are forced to team up in order to take down a ruthless dictator (Gary Oldman). Reynolds is still riding high off the success of Deadpool, and teaming him with Sam The Man seems like a great idea.
