12 new Hollywood movies to watch in spring 2024, from If to Kung Fu Panda 4 and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

When instructed to become the Valley’s new spiritual leader, Po is reluctant to quit being the Dragon Warrior. As a last hurrah, he teams up with a wily Fox (Awkwafina) to track down a villainous chameleon (Viola Davis), who wields the power to adopt her enemies’ appearance and absorb their kung fu. (Opens March 28)

2. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

After the success of 2021’s Godzilla vs Kong, the two feuding titans must now put aside their differences and forge an uneasily alliance against a new global threat lurking deep within the Hollow Earth.
While it falls short of the epic spectacle in Takashi Yamazaki’s award-winning Godzilla Minus One, Legendary’s own MonsterVerse franchise continues to deliver escapist entertainment of the highest order, with Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens providing human support. (Opens March 28)

3. The First Omen

A belated prequel to the hit horror franchise, The First Omen marks the directorial debut of Arkasha Stevenson (Brand New Cherry Flavor), and follows a young British woman (Nell Tiger Free) as she travels to Rome to take her holy orders, only to discover a plot to sire the Antichrist.

After the botched recent attempt to revive The Exorcist, critics are understandably sceptical about this one, but horror is a box office perennial, so a strong opening at least is all but guaranteed. (Opens April 4)

4. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Said to be based on the real-life exploits of “Churchill’s Secret Warriors”, Guy Ritchie’s latest madcap action adventure appears to be channelling the anarchic energy of Inglourious Basterds.

Henry Cavill plays the outrageously mustachioed leader of a Dirty Dozen-like troop of ragtag soldiers, tasked with dropping behind Nazi lines to pull off a series of covert ops at the height of World War II. Eiza Gonzalez, Alan Ritchson and Henry Golding also star. (Opens April 18)

5. Challengers

Originally scheduled to open the Venice Film Festival last September, before being postponed because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, Luca Guadagnino’s saucy sports comedy arrives in perfect time to catch the wave of Dune-induced Zendaya fever.

She plays a former tennis champion who turns to coaching following a career-ending injury, only to become embroiled in a ménage-à-trois involving her husband and former lover, who find themselves in a showdown on and off the court. Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist star. (Opens April 25)

6. The Fall Guy

In a film loosely inspired by the iconic 80s TV show starring Lee Majors, Ryan Gosling plays a past-his-prime Hollywood stuntman who reluctantly returns to work when the leading man (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) of his director ex-girlfriend’s film goes missing.

Emily Blunt plays the former flame whose career is on the line, while David Leitch (Deadpool 2, Bullet Train) directs what promises to be a glossy, high-octane action romcom starring two of Tinseltown’s hottest talents. (Opens April 25)

7. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

The fourth instalment of the rebooted franchise picks up the action 300 years after the events of Matt Reeves’ War for the Planet of the Apes. Highly evolved simians, led by Proximus Caesar, are searching for human technology to weaponise their takeover of the world, while humans have regressed to an almost feral existence.
Wes Ball, director of The Maze Runner series, takes the helm, while Kevin Durand, Owen Teague and William H. Macy star. (Opens May 9)

8. If

Following the huge success of sci-fi horror A Quiet Place and its sequel, actor-writer-director John Krasinski vowed to make a film his young children could watch.

If is a live-action fantasy, in which a young girl (Calley Fleming) gains the ability to see other people’s imaginary friends (IFs), and the man who lives upstairs (Ryan Reynolds) shares the same gift. Together they set out to help IFs who have been abandoned by their grown-up human friends. (Opens May 16)

9. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

George Miller’s sci-fi spectacular Mad Max: Fury Road floored audiences not only because of its insane Oscar-winning action, but because its focus was trained primarily on one-armed female warrior Imperator Furiosa, rather than Max’s eponymous hero.

Now comes Furiosa’s origin story, with Anya Taylor-Joy taking the wheel for another round of post-apocalyptic vehicular mayhem.

Chris Hemsworth, sporting an extraordinary prosthetic proboscis, plays Dementus, the villainous warlord responsible for her life of solitary vengeance. (Opens May 23)

10. Bad Boys: Ride or Die

Will Smith (left) and Martin Lawrence in a still from the 2020 film Bad Boys for Life.

Perhaps confirming that “The Slap” at the 2022 Oscars did nothing to derail Will Smith’s career, the action star returns, alongside Martin Lawrence, for a fourth dose of explosive law enforcement.

Plot details are thin on the ground, but suffice to say that directing duo Adil & Bilall return following their work on 2020’s Bad Boys for Life one of the biggest box office hits of the pandemic as do fellow castmates Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, and Paola Núñez. (Opens June 6)

11. The Watchers

Written and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of The Sixth Sense’s M. Night Shyamalan, The Watchers is a supernatural horror mystery set in rural Ireland and starring Dakota Fanning and Georgina Campbell.

The film marks the feature directorial debut of the Tisch graduate, who previously directed second unit for her father on Old and Knock at the Cabin, as well as writing and directing several episodes of the AppleTV+ series Servant. (Opens June 13)

12. A Quiet Place: Day One

One of the most successful horror franchises of recent years, A Quiet Place now gets its own prequel, laying out the details of the alien invasion that tormented Emily Blunt and her family over the course of two previous blockbuster thrillers.

Creator John Krasinski hands writing and directing duties this time to Michael Sarnoski, who directed 2021’s critical hit Pig. Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn and Alex Wolff play the leads. (Opens June 27)

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