Superheroes, dinosaurs, and Pedro Pascal: Summer blockbuster season is here!

The Star

31-05-2025

Ethan Hunt's last mission? A new Superman? Two genre-spanning Pedro Pascal films, including a romance and a superhero movie? Hollywood's pulling out the stops this summer movie season, which kicked off with the release of Thunderbolts .
May also brought big studio releases like live-action Lilo & Stitch , Final Destination Bloodlines and Mission: Impossible: Final Reckoning .
Next month heats up with race cars in F1 , adventure in How To Train Your Dragon , zombies in 28 Years Later and beautiful killers in Ballerina and M3gan 2.0 .
July is supercharged with Jurassic World Rebirth , Superman , Fantastic Four: First Steps and The Naked Gun .
August delivers big with action ( Nobody 2 ), horror ( Weapons ), a lighthearted body-swap ( Freakier Friday ) and a New York love triangle ( Materialists ).
And September closes the season with some supernatural ( The Conjuring 4 ) and romance ( A Big Bold Beautiful Journey ).
Here's a guide to help make sense of the many, many options in theatres. Release dates are subject to change. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (Now showing)
Nothing ever really ends in the land of franchise filmmaking, but the 'final' in the title suggests this could actually be Tom Cruise's last ride as Ethan Hunt.
Even if it isn't, audiences can trust it'll be full of death-defying spectacles worthy of the big screen. Lilo & Stitch (Now showing)
This live-action reimagining of the 2002 classic about orphaned Hawaiian sisters who unknowingly adopt an alien was directed by Marcel The Shell With Shoes On filmmaker Dean Fleischer Camp.
Sydney Agudong, who plays older sister Nani, said: 'The beauty of this movie is that it highlights the idea of Aloha and Ohana and the family dynamics that happen here along with the aliens and the Hawaiian roller coaster ride.'
Lilo &Stitch Karate Kid: Legends (June 5)
Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio unite for the newest Karate Kid film, set three years after Cobra Kai and focusing on a new kid, Li, played by Ben Wang.
'It kind of harkens back to the previous entries in the franchise,' Wang said. 'It's a kid who is a fish out of water who comes to a new city and has to face down bullies.'
Ana De Armas leads this John Wick spin-off about a deadly (and classically trained) assassin.
Ballerina How To Train Your Dragon (June 12)
Unlike most live adaptations of animated movies, filmmaker Dean DeBlois is behind both.
DeBlois said their goal was to make the film 'really immersive', to dial up the sense of urgency and peril and 'to just pull the audience in and make them feel like these dragons are real, that you could own one, you could fly on the back of one'.
Mason Thames plays Hiccup and Nico Parker takes on the role of Astrid in this epic fantasy sure to enchant a new generation (and the one who grew up on the original).
The original team behind 28 Days Later, including director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, return with a new entry featuring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes.
This intergalactic adventure centres on an 11-year-old earthling (Yonas Kibreab) who is abducted by aliens and assumed to be a world leader. Oscar-winner Zoe Saldana is part of the voice cast.
The creepy, dancing doll is back – as is an even more dangerous version on a killing spree whom she has to stop. Any questions?
M3gan 2.0
Brad Pitt plays 'the best that never was', F1 driver Sonny Hayes, who's recruited to mentor a young up-and-comer (Damson Idris) in this high-octane film from Top Gun: Maverick filmmaker Joseph Kosinski.
Real racing cars were used, driver Lewis Hamilton consulted and a new camera system was developed to give audiences an immersive experience.
'It's a story about a last-place team, a group of underdogs, and Sonny Hayes in his later years having one more chance to try to do something he was never able to do, which is win a race in F1,' Kosinski said.
Jurassic World Rebirth (July 3)
Filmmaker Gareth Edwards (a Jurassic Park superfan and the director of The Creator) is ushering in a new era of Jurassic movies and harkening back to the Steven Spielberg originals in this film with Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey.
Much about the film is being kept top secret, but Edwards said David Koepp's script read like a love letter to Spielberg's early work.
'It's basically a mission story where these military types go to this island to get this DNA, then there's a twist,' Edwards said.
'This family ends up involved and it becomes a story of survival. It's like one giant roller coaster ride and once it gets going, it sort of doesn't stop.'
James Gunn is ushering in a new era of Superman, with a fresh face in David Corenswet and the promise that he's a different Superman than what audiences have seen before.
Gunn said that this is 'a Superman that's both more grounded in his own personality and his relationship, which is much more complex than has been in the past. And then also the big magic world of Superman being in the world of the DCU with flying dogs and robots and giant monsters'.
There's romance with Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane, and a 'pretty scary' Lex Luthor in Nicholas Hoult.
'He's actually going to kill (Superman),' Gunn said. 'And that's cool to see.'
I Know What You Did Last Summer (July 17)
Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr reprise their roles from the 1997 slasher in this new instalment featuring an eerily similar situation and a cast of pretty young up-and-comers including Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King and Tyriq Withers.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Rihanna produced and stars as Smurfette in this new musical adventure.
'There's a purity to the Smurfs mythos,' said Nick Offerman, who voices Papa Smurf's brother Ken.
'That, I think, is what makes their appeal so timeless. They're a benevolent group of wee blue villagers who, you know, want to love one another and lead productive lives while fending off the world's forces of evil, usually represented by the machinations of some wizards out for ill gotten gains.'
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (July 24)
Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach unite to play 'Marvel's first family' in this retro-futuristic world set in 1960s New York.
Director Matt Shakman (WandaVision, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia) said they are the only superheroes in their world and are the leading lights of their age.
While the scale and world building were on another level, Shakman said, 'it's also no different from all of the great comedies and dramas that I've done – in the end, it comes down to character, to relationships and to heart and humour'.
Liam Neeson flexes his particular set of comedy skills as Frank Drebin Jr in this irreverent new entry from The Lonely Island veteran Akiva Schaffer, featuring Paul Walter Hauser and Pamela Anderson.
Talk To Me filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou return with this creepy new movie about death, resurrection and the arrival of an adopted kid who is not quite right. Sally Hawkins plays the mother.
Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Awkwafina and Anthony Ramos return for another animated heist, but this time they're teaming up with a new squad called the Bad Girls (voiced by Danielle Brooks, Maria Bakalova and Natasha Lyonne).
An entire classroom of children goes missing in filmmaker Zach Cregger's eerie follow-up to Barbarian, starring Josh Brolin, Julia Garner and Alden Ehrenreich.
Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are back as the body-swapping mother and daughter duo.
Bob Odenkirk's former assassin Hutch Mansell can't catch a break. This time, Keanu Reeves joins the bloody fun.
Dakota Johnson plays a matchmaker torn between two prospects (played by Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal) in love story from Past Lives filmmaker Celine Song.
'It's a modern love story that's set in New York City and it's inspired by the brief time that I worked as a professional matchmaker,' Song said.
'I really tried in this film to be really honest about the marketplace of dating, as the people actually experience it and live it today.'
The Conjuring: Last Rites (Sept 4)
Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return to their roles as paranormal investigators and authors Ed and Lorraine Warren. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Sept 18)
Those who have no interest in superheroes or the usual summer shenanigans might appreciate this romantic fantasy-drama from the singularly named Kogonada who made the intriguing dramas Columbus and After Yang.
Originally slated to come out in May, the studio moved the film starring Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Phoebe Waller-Bridge because, according to Variety, 'a September release was more appealing to the studio, as it's filled with more horror and male-centred titles, allowing the female event film to stand out.' – AP