Summer Movie Preview: Nolan, Spider-Man and 'Toy Story' light up the cinemas

The movies always feel bigger in the summer. The budgets. The ambition. The names. The stakes. This summer, Hollywood has many of the regulars on the lineup: “Spider-Man,” “Minions,” “Star Wars” and “Toy Story.” But the most eagerly anticipated is not a superhero, toy, or franchise: It’s a 3,000-year-old epic poem.

For filmmaker Christopher Nolan, “The Odyssey,” out July 17, isn't just a story. It's the story: A foundational piece that deserved to be done on the biggest possible scale, with all the resources modern Hollywood had to offer.

“There’s a massive amount of pressure,” Nolan told The Associated Press. “Anyone taking on ‘The Odyssey’ is taking on the hopes and dreams of people for epic movies everywhere and that comes with a huge responsibility.”

It's a familiar feeling, though. He did three Batman films after all.

“What I learned from that experience is that what people want from a movie about a beloved story, a beloved set of characters, is they want a strong and sincere interpretation,” Nolan said. “They want to know that a filmmaker has gone to the mat for it. I really tried to make the best film possible.”

Three summers ago, “Oppenheimer” made nearly a billion dollars. “The Odyssey” has battles, gods, creatures and an army of movie stars — Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya and Tom Holland included. It's also the first movie shot entirely on IMAX film. Tickets for some IMAX 70 mm showings sold out in under an hour a full year in advance.

“The Odyssey” will be shorter than “Oppenheimer”; Three hours is the longest they’ve been able to get onto an IMAX film projector, after all.

“It’s an epic film, as the subject matter demands,” Nolan said. “But it is shorter.”

Summer movie season's fashionable kickoff

Hollywood may not save all its blockbusters for the hottest months anymore, but the 18 week corridor running from the first weekend in May through Labor Day remains the industry’s most important, accounting for around 40% of the year’s box office. And it's only surpassed $4 billion once since the pandemic, in 2023.

Marvel movies often kick off the season, but last year filmmaker David Frankel got a call from Disney: “Avengers: Doomsday” wasn’t going to be ready by the first weekend in May; Could “The Devil Wears Prada 2” step up?

May 1 is just days before the Met Gala and it would give the movie a long runway to play, he figured. It would also require a bit of a sprint — they finished the film just weeks ago. But the enthusiasm was motivating, from fans snapping photos of Hathaway and Meryl Streep on the New York streets, to support from Anna Wintour.

Love for “Prada” isn’t the only thing that’s changed in 20 years; Magazines have also become an endangered species.

“How does Miranda Priestly deal with this changing world and what’s her future?” Frankel said. “The same with Andy Sachs: If all your ambition has been funneled in this one direction, what happens when you have to pivot and how do you adapt?”

The $4 billion question

The movie industry is also adjusting to a new paradigm. Box office is down over 20% from pre-COVID levels. The rise in streaming, the pandemic and shifting theatrical windows altered people’s moviegoing habits, perhaps permanently. And there may be one less major studio if Paramount acquires Warner Bros.

But, as James Cameron said, “hope springs eternal.

“We still have a very robust theatrical industry at a time when it was kind of almost pronounced dead,” Cameron said.

The gap is not widening. Studios are committing to longer exclusive theatrical windows. Original movies and premium formats are drawing crowds. And the market continues to expand globally.

Cameron is behind one of those only-in-a-theater experiences with the 3D Billie Eilish concert film (May 8). Using new technology, they used 17 camera systems to capture four nights of her Manchester shows last year.

“Seeing it in 3D is astonishing,” Cameron said. “You really feel an intimacy with her and yet you feel the scale of the spectacle.”

A summer for heavyweights

Nolan isn’t Universal’s only giant of cinema on its summer roster: Steven Spielberg is also returning to one of his most beloved genres with “Disclosure Day” (June 12). There are superhero movies as well, with “Supergirl” (June 26), which DC Studios co-head Peter Safran said is “is something cool and original and we haven’t seen before,” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” (July 31). The last Spidey film, which made over $1.9 billion, ended with Holland’s Peter Parker erasing himself from everyone’s memory.

“This is a blockbuster action movie with all the humor and emotion we love about Spider-Man,” director Destin Daniel Cretton said. “But at its heart, it’s a story about learning how to reconnect with the ones you love.”

A lot of power recently has shifted to PG-rated offerings. This summer has “Toy Story 5” (June 19), “Minions & Monsters” (July 1) and a live action “Moana” (July 10), which could all very well hit a billion dollars each.

One non-franchise family friendly film is “The Sheep Detectives” (May 8), in which the animals (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston) investigate the death of their beloved owner (Hugh Jackman). Writer Craig Mazin understands the hurdle: There have been a lot of stupid talking animal movies. But this one is different, he said, it's not just silly sheep doing silly things.

“There are some really beautiful moments and themes and things that parents can talk about with their kids,” Mazin said. “And most importantly, it is legitimately a movie that is meant for everyone.”

Then there's “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” (May 22), which is rated PG-13 but has an impossibly cute alien going for it. It’s also one of several made for IMAX.

“People have got great TVs at home,” said director Jon Favreau. “You’ve got to give them a reason to go out.”

The scary movies

Movie studios also continue to lean into horror and this summer has both franchises, like “Evil Dead Burn”(July 10) and “Insidious: Out of the Further” (Aug. 21) and unnerving indies, including the “conversion therapy” horror “Leviticus,” “Rose of Nevada” (both June 19), “Backrooms” (May 29) and a new Jane Schoenbrun, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” (Aug. 7).

And then there is “Scary Movie 6" (June 5), which sees the return of Regina Hall and Anna Faris, as well as Marlon and Shawn Wayans, who haven't been involved in the franchise they helped create since the 2001 sequel. And there were so many movies ripe for parody, like “M3GAN,” “Get Out,” “Weapons,” the just-released “Michael,” and “Sinners,” which Marlon Wayans was most excited about.

“Mockery is the greatest form of flattery,” Wayans said. “Sending up their movie was definitely tipping our hat to them.”

The festival darlings and other gems

Audiences want more than brands and blockbusters though. This year moviegoers have already proven they’ll turn out when the buzz is right, whether it’s for a big crowd pleaser like “Project Hail Mary” or for something more challenging like “The Drama.”

One that has the potential to break through is Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite” (June 26), a chamber dramedy about two very different couples (Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton) over one wine-filled night that sparked a bidding war at the Sundance Film Festival. Wilde was heartened that most studios were offering theatrical releases, and ultimately chose A24. They’ve even made a 35 mm print.

“The whole project for me is really tipping my hat to Mike Nichols,” Wilde said. “We thought of the audiences that have always loved those films.”

There are plenty of indies and originals to choose from throughout the summer, including Daniel Roher’s “Tuner,” about a piano prodigy turned safecracker, Boots Riley’s colorful shoplifting movie “I Love Boosters,” (both May 22) a John Carney musical with Paul Rudd (“Power Ballad,” June 5) and David Wain’s wholesomely raunchy comedy “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” (July 10).

As Wilde said, there’s room for both originals and franchises.

“The audience really likes to recognize risk,” she said. “There’s something exciting about that.”

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For more coverage of this summer’s upcoming films, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/movies