January 12, 2013 by Vinnie Leduc
We’ve survived the 2012 apocalypse, and we couldn’t be happier as we look ahead to 2013’s slate of films. In honor of the new year, we’ve assembled a lucky set of 13 movies we can’t wait to check out (and again we’ve cheated a little bit this year too by throwing in an additional baker’s dozen of honorable mentions), and we’ve crowned one of them as MediaStinger’s most anticipated movie of 2013.
Honestly, I could include yet another batch of 13 movies here on top of the 26 below, but more importantly, we want to know what movies you are looking forward most to this year? Let us know in the comments if we’ve left out something that’s flashing brightly on your radar.
- 300: Rise of an Empire
- After Earth
- Ender’s Game
- Gangster Squad
- Iron Man 3
- Kick-Ass 2
- Man of Steel
- Oblivion
- Pacific Rim
- The Place Beyond the Pines
- Riddick
- This is The End
- World War Z
Honorable Mentions: Anchorman: The Legend Continues, Elysium, Fast and Furious 6, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, A Good Day to Die Hard, The Hangover Part III, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Lone Ranger, Pain & Gain, RED 2, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, White House Down, The Wolverine
Gangster Squad shoots into theaters this weekend… okay, poor choice of words, but everybody watching the cops-‘n’-crime thriller will be interested to see what’s replaced the climactic trailer scene that was reportedly cut in the wake of the tragedy when The Dark Knight Rises opened. Aside from that horrific event, Gangster Squad‘s cast that mixes established Oscar vets and younger up-and-comers already had us aiming for this movie long before some sociopath tarnished it.
One of these rising stars, Ryan Gosling, is featured in another crime story with a great cast, The Place Beyond the Pines. If it’s anything like his last collaboration with Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance, this movie will be another excellent one that’ll make me want to kill myself.
I’ll have to balance any tears of sorrow with tears of laughter, and from the looks of the hilarious trailer for This is The End, Seth Rogan’s directional debut may very well do the trick. He co-stars with a long list of comedic actors, all of whom play themselves, including James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Michael Cera, Emma Watson, Jason Segal, Paul Rudd, Mindy Kaling, Kevin Hart, and Aziz Ansari.
Speaking of The End, modern mankind has often predicted that our ultimate downfall will begin with World War III. But nowadays with the success of The Walking Dead and plenty of thematic video games, you can’t talk about an apocalypse without talking about zombies. World War Z pits Will Smith Brad Pitt versus the undead, Starship Troopers style, but many of the fans of the popular novel that it’s based upon are about as rabid as the swarms of zombies in the trailer, thanks to reports that the film will be significantly different from the book.
Another even more popular book will finally be getting the silver screen treatment when Ender’s Game hits theaters. I haven’t read the bestseller, but all I know is that it’s sci-fi and that there’s aliens or something. Kind of like… the crew of the Enterprise in Star Trek Into Darkness, or Vin Diesel in Riddick, or perhaps Will Smith & son in After Earth (before the trailer’s final twist), or maybe Tom Cruise in Oblivion?
Oblivion, a graphic novel adaptation, will try to go the way of another that became massively successful, 300. Little is known about the 3D prequel, 300: Rise of an Empire, beyond the fact that the original’s director, Zack Snyder, will not be returning. What we do know is that Snyder has moved on to bigger and better things… and next up is the Superman reboot Man of Steel.
But don’t forget about the reigning king of metal. Fresh off the biggest box office victory of all time in The Avengers last May, Tony Stark will already be back by this May in Iron Man 3. And finally, in addition to possibly witnessing one mech man fall, we’ll get a chance to see manmade mechs rise a couple months later in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim.
Here at MediaStinger, we’re most excited for two of these movies, Star Trek Into Darkness and Man of Steel. Produced by living legend Christopher Nolan, written by his Batman trilogy collaborator David S. Goyer, and directed by Zack Snyder, the next Superman reboot is primed to be one of our favorite movies, especially with an all-star cast that includes Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner and Oscar nominees Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, and Laurence Fishburne.
We’re big fans of Lost co-creator and Cloverfield producer J.J. Abrams, and we liked his last directorial effort, Super 8, a movie that won our Best Sci-Fi award last year. His reboot of Star Trek a few years ago was such a surprising masterpiece that it nearly turned me into a full-fledged Trekkie when I barely had any interest in the franchise before. It was a very close vote here between Captain Kirk and Clark Kent, but what ultimately pushed the Star Trek sequel ahead of Superman was one of the best ways to get people hyped for a movie, the 10-minute Into Darkness prologue screened with select IMAX showings of The Hobbit last month.
MediaStinger’s Most Anticipated Movie of 2013: Star Trek Into Darkness.
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