June 2024 film preview: Sequels, prequels, and Glen Powell try to charm the summer box office

Cast: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Rhea Seehorn, Ioan Gruffudd, DJ Khaled, and Joe Pantoliano

Directors: Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah

After wasting the good fourth-movie title, Bad Boys For Life, on the third movie, directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are, once again, chasing Mike Lowery (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) around Miami. This time, Mike and Marcus are on the run after being set up by a cartel. Armed with a video message from Joe Pantoliano that graciously takes up much of the trailer, Bad Boys: Ride Or Die will be the next major step in Will Smith’s post-slap career. If any movie could convince the public that Will Smith isn’t a violent guy, it’s a sequel to the movie where he pulls drugs from hollowed-out corpses with his bare hands.

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, Siobhan Hewlett, Oliver Finnegan, and Hannah Howland

Director: Ishana Night Shyamalan

It’s not much of a twist, but Ishana Night Shyamalan has been collaborating with her father, M. Night, and sister, Saleka, for years. She’s directed music videos for Saleka, worked as a second unit director for her dear dad on Old and Knock At The Cabin, and helmed several episodes of his Apple TV+ series, Servant. For her directorial debut, Ishana is sticking to the family business and adapting A.M. Shine’s novel about a mysterious cabin that doubles as entertainment for supernatural monsters. One thing’s clear: She inherited her father’s love of high-concept horror.

Cast: Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, and Retta

Director: Richard Linklater

Finally giving Glen Powell a chance to be charming on film, director Richard Linklater returns to Netflix for the “unbelievable true story” of a nerdy philosophy professor who gets his kicks playing a pretend hit man in undercover sting operations. But what happens when he falls in love with his next mark? Last year, Hit Man was the toast of the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals, with critics enthusiastically encouraging audiences to see this one with a crowd. Unsurprisingly, it was purchased by Netflix, given the faintest whiff of a theatrical release, and will take up residence in the anonymous algorithm of despair on June 7. Maybe invite some friends over for this one.

Cast: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Tony Hale, Liza Lapria, Maya Hawke, Ayo Edebiri, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Paul Walter Hauser, Kensington Tallman, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan, Lilimar, Yvette Nicole Brown, Dave Goelz, Frank Oz, Bobby Moynihan, and Paula Poundstone

Director: Kelsey Mann

No Pixar movie escapes a sequel, and while we bite our fingernails waiting for WALL-2, the Imagineers at Disney are taking us back inside the mind of a child. Inside Out 2 again focuses on the anthropomorphic emotions inside Riley, who, now entering her teen years, has a few more feelings to reckon with. Most of the original voices are back, but it’s Pixar’s hit streak that has us worried. Their last two releases, Elemental and Lightyear, divided critics, a stinging disappointment after Turning Red. These sequels aren’t easy, but as always, we’re hoping this is more Toy Story 2 than Finding Dory.

Cast: Karim Aïnouz

Director: Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Eddie Marsan, Sam Riley, Ruby Bentall, and Erin Doherty

One must respect this trailer’s hustle. Convincing younger viewers that a costume drama about the Tudors is more like a true crime mystery just waiting for the right podcast is a clever approach. Can Queen Catherine (Vikander) stay true to her husband, Henry VIII (Law), and her feminist firebrand best friend, Anne Askew (Doherty), without becoming her husband’s latest dead wife? To its credit, the movie looks lively enough that it doesn’t immediately read as homework, and Jude Law is eligible for extra credit by appearing to have an absolute blast.

Cast: Lena Dunham, Stephen Fry, André Hennicke, and Zbigniew Zamachowski

Director: Julia von Heinz

In Julia von Heinz’s new dramedy, Ruth (Duham) pushes her father, Edek (Fry), a Holocaust survivor, out of his comfort zone and onto a trip to Poland, where he was raised. Edek has other plans. In hopes of avoiding his painful childhood memories, he attempts to sabotage the trip in ways that feel distinctly Toni Erdmann, which Dunham was going to remake at one point. The trailer advertises a somewhat sentimental comedy about the survivor’s guilt and trauma of the Holocaust. It’s a tough balance to nail, but maybe Treasure can coast on Dunham and Fry’s comedic charms.

Cast: Jennifer Esposito, Annabella Sciorra, Odessa A’zion, Domenick Lombardozzi, Emily Bader, and Nicholas Cirillo

Director: Jennifer Esposito

Fresh Kills, the directorial debut from Boys actor Jennifer Esposito, is a mob movie told from the perspective of the mob wife. Esposito plays Francine, who experiences a kind of terror we’ve seen numerous times in gangster media, from The Godfather to The Sopranos. This time that point of view focuses on what Deadline calls “the first feature film financed and traded by a global group of fan investors via this first-of-its-kind IPO on Upstream, the revolutionary Ethereum-powered digital stock exchange.” As unappetizing as that seems, the premise is overdue. After nearly a century of gangster movies, it’s astonishing that Fresh Kills seems, well, fresh.

Cast: Keith Kupferer, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Tara Mallen, Dolly De Leon, and Hannah Dworkin

Director: Kelly O’Sullivan And Alex Thompson

It’s every child’s nightmare: Your father is a theater kid. In the experimental indie from the directors of Saint Frances, Ghostlight follows a real family of actors as they dramatize the story of a family torn apart by the death of a teenage son and brought back together through the magic of community theater. After Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) catches her father (Keith Kupferer) practicing lines for Romeo & Juliet, she and her mom take roles, and her dad begins to open up to them.

Cast: Lily Gladstone, Isabel Deroy-Olson, Shea Whigham, Crystle Lightning, and Ryan Begay

Director: Erica Tremblay

Lily Gladstone is staying at Apple TV+. Following her breakout role in Killers Of The Flower Moon, Gladstone plays Jax, the sister of a missing woman, who cares for her niece Roki (Deroy-Olson) amid financial ruin on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation in Oklahoma. Jax’s financial instability invites child protective services, which wants to force Roki to live with her father (Shea Whigham). To avoid being broken apart, Jax and Roki flee the reservation in search of their missing loved one and hope to find her before the upcoming powwow.

Cast: Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, Boyd Holbrook, and Norman Reedus

Director: Jeff Nichols

The Bikeriders, the first movie from Jeff Nichols in seven years, is finally ready to ride. Based on Danny Lyon’s photo book, The Bikeriders hitches itself to the Vandals MC, a fictional Chicago motorcycle club, where Kathy (Comer) and lead Vandal Johnny (Hardy, doing a funny voice), fall for the newest Vandal, Benny (Austin Butler). Their relationships will be put to the test as Johnny steers the whole gang down dangerous roads. 20th Century Studios abandoned the movie during the strikes last year. Their loss is hopefully Focus Features and the audience’s gain.

Cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie, and Hunter Schafer

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

At this point, Yorgos Lanthimos movies are advertised and sold on his name. Just a few months after the release of his surprise hit, the Oscar-winning Poor Things, actors Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Margret Qualley are looking to get weird and find kinds of kindness. Here’s some more value add: They’re bringing aboard Jesse Plemons and Hong Chau, two actors who have never met a scene they couldn’t improve. What’s it about? Who knows! We bet it’ll be pretty gross, off-putting, and funny, though.

Cast: June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Reuben Rabasa, Nicole Byer, and Hilda Boulware

Director: Josh Margolin

Don’t tell nonagenarian Oscar-nominee June Squibb she’s too old to kick ass. With a story that should resonate with the masses, Thelma (Squibb) gets tricked by a deepfake of her grandson and forks over a pile of cash to the scammers to get him back. When it’s revealed to be a ruse, she loads up her Rascal, grabs Richard Roundtree (in his final film role), and hunts down the bastards presumably responsible. Thelma promises to be a soothing balm for the influx of senior-based revenge thrillers filling up Redboxes at a disturbing clip.

Cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Simpkins, Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg, Adrian Pasdar, and David Hyde Pierce

Director: Joshua John Miller

Speaking of Redbox, there’s a new Russell Crowe exorcism movie coming out this month. Continuing his streak of meta-horror movies, Final Girls writer Joshua John Miller is mining his own life experience. Miller, the real-life son of Exorcist actor Jason Miller, who plays the doomed Father Karras, directs a horror movie about an actor playing a doomed priest in an Exorcist-style thriller. Based on the folk tales from The Exorcist set, The Exorcism sees Russell Crowe back in exorcist garb (sans scooter).

Cast: Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Djimon Hounsou, and Alex Wolff

Director: Michael Sarnoski

Here’s a weird one. After two movies, the Quiet Place series is ready to get loud. Day One promises the initial invasion in all its screaming, crying, exploding, CGI glory. We’re not entirely sure that’s what viewers (and listeners) want out of a Quiet Place movie, but considering it’s the first movie from Michael Sanoski since Pig, we’ll file this under cautiously optimistic, but we’d be a bit more excited had Sanoski not been sucked into franchise world so quickly. Let’s hope this one secures an original feature from him.

Cast: Kevin Costner, Dale Dickey, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee, Tom Payne, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Michael Angarano, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Rooker, Kathleen Quinlan, Luke Wilson, Will Patton, Jamie Campbell Bower, and Danny Huston

Director: Kevin Costner

Amid a lengthy divorce and a hit television show that can’t seem to film a season, Kevin Costner poured $38 million into a four-part, 12-hour passion project. With the first of two chapters releasing this summer, Horizon is a gambit on par with Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. Though it may blow up in their face, it’s exciting to see filmmakers at that level still willing to put it on the line. And much like Coppola, Costner has had passion projects succeed (Dances With Wolves) and fail (The Postman). That’s what makes these kinds of projects so exciting, but yeah, it would be cool if the movie were good, too. Fingers crossed for Chapter 1.

Cast: Julianne Nicholson, Will Paton, Zoe Ziegler, Sophie Okonedo, and Elias Koteas

Director: Annie Baker

How does a little late June melancholy courtesy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and first-time film director Annie Baker sound? Depressed single mother Julianne Nicholson hopes to teach her downhearted daughter that life isn’t all bad, even though she thinks, “Every moment of my life is hell.” Zoe Ziegler, in her first film role, plays the daughter and looks primed to steal the hearts of audiences in Janet Planet, a movie with an incredible title. A little summertime coming-of-age sadness is always in order when the days grow long.