Stephen Arnell

Films to look out for in 2021

  • From Spectator Life
Image: Paramount

For cinema goers 2020 was understandably a year of thin gruel. The advent of Covid-19 meant that many films banking on a big cinema release were shunted to this year – the underwhelming box office performance of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet confirming the wisdom of this choice. Some movies were moved to limited cinema and simultaneous pay-per-view release, such as The Witches and Mulan – a model that Warner Bros have decided to go full tilt with on their streaming service HBO Max. Justifiably this has caused uproar in the creative community, with directors including Nolan and Denis Villeneuve (Dune) particularly vocal.

The first fruits of Warner’s decision were the recent release of Wonder Woman 1984; it’s too early to say whether the box office and streaming revenue backs the strategy. But if it does, expect other studios to follow suit.


Movie releases in 2021 will obviously depend on public confidence in returning to cinemas when it’s possible to do so.  Spring looks like crunch time as studios need to release the backlog of blockbusters (Bond, Marvel, DC etc) to bring audiences back. So, with these caveats, a look at some of the motion pictures heading our way in 2021:

January

Paul W. S. Anderson’s (Alien Vs Predator, Event Horizon) video game adaptation Monster Hunter has already managed to upset Chinese audiences with a verbal pun about knees that backfired with Asian audiences and was widely interpreted as a racial slur. The film was pulled by many Chinese cinemas just one day after its release. We’ll see how it fares with US and British audiences – and whether producers will remove the offending line.


Sky will also be releasing a remake of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit (directed in 1945 by David Lean) on their Cinema channel. Dan Stevens takes Rex Harrison’s lead role as Charles Condomine, with Judi Dench as the psychic Madame Aracati (Margaret Rutherford in the original), although judging by the trailer the stylised acting might be an acquired taste:


February


The second month of the year sees the UK release of Promising Young Woman starring Carey Mulligan and the OC’s Adam Brody.

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