As 2021 failed to end with the disappearance of Covid-19, instead letting loose a potentially devastating new strain of the virus, we can take solace in the fact that there will always be the movies. While there are indie films aplenty, in these trying times Hollywood appears to the panacea, as evidenced by the humongous box office performance of Spider-Man: No Way Home both in India and globally.
The January release I’m most looking forward to is The 355. International agents on a quest to recover a top-secret weapon with a cast headlined by Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penelope Cruz and Diane Kruger — what’s not to love? It’s releasing on the same day as SS Rajamouli’s RRR, so it may well be a double bill at the multiplex for me.
February brings Kenneth Branagh’s long-delayed Agatha Christie adaptation Death on the Nile, with Branagh himself as Poirot, held back thus far because of the scandal surrounding co-star Armie Hammer. While I watch it, I will ponder the existential questions, can I separate the actor from his alleged deeds, and should the work of hundreds of associates suffer because of one man?
March begins with the release of Covid-affected production The Batman, with Robert Pattinson donning the cowl this time, and ends with a film in my favourite genre — Romancing the Stone — if you can call it a genre that is. Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum star in The Lost City, which promises to be every inch of film the title suggests.
While April has a slew of high-profile releases, I’m going to give them a miss or wait for them to stream, simply because my excitement levels aren’t high enough. May, on the other hand, is packed with releases, beginning with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, followed by Reese Witherspoon (if you haven’t watched The Morning Show, you really must) in Legally Blonde 3 and the delayed by two years blockbuster, Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick.
June brings the promise of another Covid-affected production Jurassic World: Dominion and Baz Luhrmann’s as-yet-untitled Elvis biopic with Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker. Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok remains my favourite Marvel Cinematic Universe film to date, for its sheer irreverence, and its follow up Thor: Love and Thunder is due in July.
Sacrilegiously, I’ll give Hollywood a break for all of August and most of September, returning to the IMAX only for Mission Impossible: 7 at the end of the latter month. Some of the images released of Cruise’s stunts look breathtaking, and I’m there for it.
Animated sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Part One is due in October, while November brings more superheroes in the shape of The Flash and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
There’s only one game in town for me in December, James Cameron’s long-awaited Avatar 2, which begs the question that since the first Avatar released back in 2009, have they left the sequels too long, in the face of a fickle public with short attention spans?
Some disappointing postponements, too — Indiana Jones 5 and John Wick 4 have been moved to 2023, but I think we have enough to get on with in 2022. Don’t you?
Naman Ramachandran is a journalist and author of Rajinikanth: The Definitive Biography, and tweets @namanrs
