The fall season is a great time to be a movie-lover. Not only is it the period of the year that we get to see the studios whip out all of their big award contenders, filling cinemas with awesome films, but it's also the stretch when we get to start really look ahead at all the big titles that are set for release in the first half of next year. Now that time has come in 2016, and we find ourselves highly anticipating first-looks at some impressive features that will be hitting theaters in the coming months.
Below and on the next few pages, we've put together a list of a few movies that we're incredibly excited for... but have yet to show us a full trailer. Read on for a tour through some of our most anticipated films of late 2016 and 2017!
Passengers
Considering that it's a sci-fi blockbuster co-starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, director Morten Tyldum's Passengers shouldn't be a hard sell when it comes out in late December, but we're still waiting for an actual first look at the movie (all we have thus far is a still and a poster). One can imagine that the film's visual effects are what's holding Sony back from releasing footage online -- but it's worth noting that we were blown away by the stuff that was shown at CinemaCon back in April. The good news is that because the studio has another big Chris Pratt movie coming out this week in the form of The Magnificent Seven, the trailer is surely on the way very soon.
Patriots Day
Peter Berg's Patriots Day looks as though it's lined up to be a big awards contender this year -- given its last minute qualifying limited release in December followed by a wide release in January. And yet the thriller about the bombing at the Boston Marathon in 2013 has not yet showed us a single frame. The good news is that the perfect opportunity for a debut trailer is fast approaching. This happens to be a year that Peter Berg is releasing two big movies starring Mark Wahlberg, with Deepwater Horizon set to come out in theaters at the end of this month. It's basically a lock that the first preview for the docudrama will come out in the next few days.
John Wick: Chapter Two
Directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch surprised the hell out of audiences with John Wick back in 2014, and we are hotly anticipating seeing the return of Keanu Reeves' titular dog-loving killing machine in February 2017's John Wick: Chapter Two. That's only a few months away, but we're still waiting to actually get our first look at the film. Lionsgate chose not to debut footage with the release of Blair Witch, so this may be another one that gets previewed by the studio right before the release of Deepwater Horizon. We can only hope, because we find ourselves in constant need of a lot more of John Wick-style action in our lives.
The Dark Tower
It feels like it was only yesterday that we got the news that the big screen adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower was finally in production, but the truth is that the film is now only a few months away from its February 2017 release date. As such, it shouldn't be long until we get our first trailer for the Nikolaj Arcel-directed blockbuster... but we have not yet heard about anything on the horizon. Given that it's being distributed by Sony, it's entirely possible that, like Passengers, we could see debut footage attached to The Magnificent Seven. If not, the preview will almost surely be attached to Ron Howard's Inferno next month.
Fast 8
The Fast and the Furious franchise has found a nice release window for itself, finding that there's a lot of money to be made coming out in late spring instead of competing with all the major blockbusters coming out during the summer season. This strategy is being applied to F. Gary Gray's Fast 8, which is why we're anticipating the release of a trailer sooner rather than later. Is it too much to hope that we could see Universal Pictures attach a new trailer to The Girl On The Train? If so, the good news is that there are plenty of big fall blockbusters -- including Doctor Strange, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them and more -- that could wind up getting a Fast 8 preview attached to them.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Marvel Studios already blew us away once in 2016, but they will aim to do it once again very soon with the release of Scott Derrickson's Doctor Strange. Obviously we're very excited to see the world of magic introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the blockbuster's theatrical release also has us excited for something else: the first official trailer for James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Fans at San Diego Comic-Con this summer got a look at amazing debut footage from the movie, and Marvel/Disney will surely use their first mystical comic book movie as an opportunity to give fans a peek at the May 2017 adventures of Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Did you know that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man Tell No Tales wrapped principal photography more than a year ago, and has even completed a few weeks of reshoots? And yet the blockbuster is still months away from release, not set to come out until May 2017. We have no idea why the movie has been taking so much time to develop, but one has to imagine that at this point there is plenty of usable footage that could be cut together as a trailer. With Disney releasing a number of big titles this fall, we should see a first trailer soon, but for now we're still waiting.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
The year 2017 will be an important one for Marvel Studios, in that it will be the first time that the company has put out three movies in one calendar year. That may very well change the way that they wind up looking at the marketing for their features, which is why we not only anticipate that the release of Doctor Strange will deliver our first Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 first look, but also an early sneak peek at Jon Watts' Spider-Man: Homecoming - scheduled for release in July 2017. Again, fans got a look at this hugely anticipated blockbuster at San Diego Comic-Con 2016, but we're hoping that audiences everywhere will soon be able to see footage of Tom Holland's version of the web-slinger in his own solo film.
Star Wars: Episode VIII
It's true that there are just a few things that are holding off the release of the first trailer for Rian Johnson's untitled Star Wars: Episode VIII. The first is the fact that the sci-fi franchise is notorious for keeping things super secretive, and the second is the fact that the blockbuster won't be out until the end of December 2017. That doesn't mean that we're not hotly anticipating it, however -- and there's reason to believe our first look at the film might come sooner rather than later. After all, production wrapped up all the way back in July, meaning that the last few months have been entirely dedicated to getting all of the footage prepped for not only theatrical release, but marketing as well.
