Upcoming Movies that I’m Anticipating 

The Oscars are over and it’s time to go back to the theaters and enjoy guilty pleasure box office success movies. You will definitely catch me in theaters watching these three movies.

Mulan

Coming out: 3/27/20

The Trailer. Looks. So. Good. So much that if the movie is any less than perfect, it will have failed my expectations. The cast is top-notch: Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Gong Li, and of course, Liu YiFei, who won the role after nearly 1000 other actresses auditioned for Mulan. 

Being a naive high schooler, I didn’t expect all the backlash that would come with this live-action release. Looking for anything else besides my homework to do, I scrolled through YouTube comments under Mulan trailers and I swear at least half of them was either about the absence of Mushu or the absence of ballads that have become synonymous with Disney films. Don’t take this personally but those were two aspects of the animated film that I didn’t enjoy because of one simple reason—Mulan isn’t a princess. She isn’t born into royalty, she doesn’t get married off to royalty, and her journey to forge a life as a man to protect her father doesn’t suggest a princess story. As such, the potential of her story was limited to the princess formula that was applied to all of the other Disney Princess films. 

Meanwhile, the live-action strips away the parts that took away from Mulan’s legendary story to provide a gritty interpretation of one of the most well-known heroines in Chinese history. 

It is extremely unfortunate that the release is right smack in the middle of the coronavirus season. What otherwise potentially could’ve been a box office smash in China and the U.S. will now be missing one of the biggest consumers of the film in a film meant to bring the world closer to Chinese culture. 

Of course, the limited representation of Asians on the big screen leaves added pressure on this live-action adaptation because the success or failure of this film will be used as evidence to either move forward with or table other film projects with an Asian focus, especially since there’s already so much hype for it because of the Disney backing.

No Time to Die

Coming out: 4/8/20

Surprise! Daniel Craig isn’t retiring from the Bond films just yet. This film is, once again, expected to be Craig’s last. He’s capping off an incredible run from Casino Royale(2006) to Skyfall(2012), the best Bond film in my very humble opinion, as the steely blue-eyed 007. The successes of his previous movies are definitely driving the hype for this closer, sure to be a Bond film that will stay in our memories. 

Then, there’s Billie Eilish’s single for the movie with the  same name garnered plenty of rare attention for the new Bond film among peers in my age group. The title song is known to be intricately tied to the film itself because the songwriters receive some plot details to make the song match up emotionally with the film. The success of these pairings of film and music has led to two Oscar wins in this category. 

But wait, there’s more. Rami Malek stars as the villain. Léa Seydoux reprises her role as not just a Bond girl, but an equal to Bond. This point is key because Bond films have notoriously been known to dispose of the women that surface up as an accessory to Bond himself. These misogynistic tropes have been perpetuated since the start of Bond films and continue to this day because the constant, Bond, himself, has stayed the same.

The end of this film will determine how far we’ve truly come in regard to certain tropes.

Black Widow

Coming out: 5/1/20

Why is the movie coming out after (spoiler alert) Black Widow dies in Avengers: Endgame? That’s the question everyone should be asking. In the first Avengers circular reveal of all the superheroes, it was obvious that all of them had individual movies featuring their backstories except for the Black Widow. This is all despite the fact that Scarlett Johansson is known to draw huge box offices and was one of the highest-paid actors in that movie. 

Anyway, this movie is set prior to the events in Infinity War and after Civil War when Black Widow goes into hiding after events in Civil War nearly tore the Avengers apart. Black Widow’s shift from freedom to security in Civil War confused many fans because her character had always valued secrecy and independence above all of us up to that point. 

The cast is stellar here as well: Florence Pugh comes of a fresh performance in Little Women paired alongside Scarlett Johansson herself. Both actors were actually just nominated for best performance in a supporting role at the Oscars.

It’s definitely interesting that the movies paving the way for female directors directing large budgeted movies with female leads are in the superhero genre. In the past few years, we’ve been graced with Wonder Woman(2017) and Captain Marvel(2019), both of which were huge successes at the box office. On the heels of those movies, a third box office success helmed by women will finally prove beyond a reasonable doubt that women can be the main drivers behind film success. 

So…

Each of the above films has sky-high expectations in different manners. Mulan is trying to redefine a much loved heroine story while staying exact to Chinese culture because, I’m calling it right now, this film will be how a majority of the world learns about the intricacies of Chinese culture. No Time to Die is the 25th installment of a legendary franchise saying goodbye to one of the best actors to take the Bond role. Black Widow is a movie finally paying dues to one of the original members of a group that has permeated superhero culture all around the world. My question is, which ones will meet these near-impossible expectations?