![The Hardy Boys' Fanta Flavour Fantasy: Be "inside" the iconic orange flavour of Fanta](https://biz-file.com/c/2408/748610-64x64.png?3)
Marketing & Media trends
Industry trends
BizTrends Sponsors
#BizTrends2018: Noteworthy films and film trends for 2018
A Star Wars Christmas 3.0
Disney has a plan to take some of your Christmas bonus money for at least the next 20 years. When it comes to the Star Wars franchise most of us are like, ‘shut up and take my money’. JJ Abrams gave us Episode VII: The Force Awakens in 2015 in his usual fanboy love letter style and then Gareth Edwards gave us a prequel to the original trilogy that we did not know we needed but boy, did we!
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story answered the question of how the rebels got the plans for the Death Star and why it had such a stupid weak spot. We have yet to find out exactly how many Bothans died to get information on the second Death Star but we can’t have it all, now can we?
Now we have Rian Johnson’s much-anticipated Episode VIII: The Last Jedi currently showing in cinemas. After two years of everyone and their dog on the Interwebs theorising, we finally got the lowdown.
May 25 2018 sees the release of the second Star Wars anthology in the form of Han Solo: A Star Wars Story. The film went through some rough patches with initial directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (21 Jump Street) getting replaced by Ron Howard (Inferno) midway through shooting. The actor from 2013’s Beautiful Creatures, Alden Ehrenreich was cast as Han Solo after an extensive search for exactly the right person for the role.
Donald Glover is playing the other charming scoundrel, Lando Calrissian. Everyone’s favourite Khaleesi, Emila Clarke plays the female lead and Joonas Suaotamo reprises the role of Chewbacca for which he was a double in The Force Awakens. Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Warwick Davis, Paul Bettany and Clint Howard are also in the cast.
Marvel v DC. . .Joking, it’s just Marvel (DC totally lost)
So much winning for Marvel every year. It’s like that time Donald Trump said: “We're going to win so much. You're going to get tired of winning." They went hard with Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming and the oh-so-much-fun Thor: Ragnarok. When I first saw the trailer for Avengers: Infinity War and saw Thanos in action it hit me that we watched 17 Marvel movies to get to this point! That is one huge build-up.
Marvel kicks off 2018 with Black Panther on 16 February. The trailers look mad dope and, personally, I cannot wait to see some action go down in Wakanda. The big spectacle that is Avengers: Infinity War starts on 4 May and then they close their 2018 with Ant-Man and the Wasp on 6 July.
Anastasia Steele, Lara Croft, Deadpool, a T-Rex, Grindelwald, and Aquaman walk into a bar
That sure would be an interesting evening at that bar.
Hate it or love it, the 50 Shades franchise keeps on keeping on and Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele return on 9 February 2018 for 50 Shades Freed, the er . . . climactic finale.
The Tomb Raider video games got a much-deserved overhaul with a grittier feel and a Lara Craft that does not look like a pubescent boy’s idea of a woman. 16 March 2018 sees a Tomb Raider movie in the same style as the new video games with Swedish actress, Alicia Vikander (The Light Between Two Oceans) playing Lara Croft.
Our favourite fourth wall breaking merc with a mouth returns in Deadpool 2 on the first of June and we get to see Josh Brolin as Cable, another beloved and pretty badass Marvel Comics character.
On 22 June 2018, we get some dinosaur action with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Chris Pratt is still having a great go as Hollywood leading man material and is still one of the sexy Chrises.
The first dark lord of the Harry Potter world gets his day in the sun in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald on 16 November 2018. I put the first movie off for a long time but when I got around to it it was actually quite charming and I look forward to seeing Johnny Depp’s Grindelwald and a young Dumbledore, played by Jude Law.
For all of its faults, you have to like Jason Momoa’s Aquaman in Justice League. Dude’s got a lot of styles and gets his own movie on 21 December 2018. We hope it follows in the style of Wonder Woman and not Batman v Superman.
More highlights
There is loads more happening at movies in 2018 and I can’t cover it all but here are some more titles to keep an eye out for: Ready Player One, The Incredibles 2, A Wrinkle in Time, Pacific Rim: Uprising, The New Mutants, Ocean’s Eight, X-Men: Dark Pheonix, Mission Impossible 6 (these missions are clearly very possible) and wait for it . . . Mary Poppins Returns.
Here’s to a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious 2018 at the movies.
![Charles Siboto](https://biz-file.com/b/2308/183861-140x187.jpg?6)
![](/res/img/s.gif)