2014 Preview: May

It’s generally considered to be the first major month of the summer blockbuster season, and this year is no exception. Welcome back to Rhode Island Movie Corner’s year-long preview of the films set to come out during 2014. This is Part 4 of 11 (previously 12) and today we’ll be looking at the films that will be hitting theaters this May and as I just mentioned, there are plenty of notable films to talk about for this month. So let’s dive right in…

MAY 2- As it has been every year since 2007, Marvel holds the prime spot of the first week of the month of May. However, for the first time since 2009, this spot does not belong to a Marvel Studios film, instead coming via Sony/Columbia.

*The second superhero film of the year, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ is the follow-up to 2012’s franchise reboot ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’. Marc Webb returns to direct this film and Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Sally Field reprise their roles from the previous film. In this film, Peter Parker AKA Spider-Man (Garfield) goes up against a gauntlet of enemies, including Electro (Jamie Foxx), the Green Goblin AKA Peter’s old friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), and Rhino (Paul Giamatti). Recently it has been announced that this film will be followed by not only two more sequels, but also a ‘Sinister Six’ and ‘Venom’ spinoff films.

MAY 9- This week sees one new animated film along with two new comedies, one from the guys behind ‘This is the End’ and the other from the director of ‘Iron Man’.

*About a year after Disney’s ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ comes the next big film based off of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ series by L. Frank Baum, though this film, ‘Legend of Oz: Dorothy’s Return’ is actually based off of the book ‘Dorothy of Oz’ written by Baum’s grandson Roger. This film is a ‘follow-up’ to ‘The Wizard of Oz’ in which Dorothy returns to the Land of Oz where she and her friends look to stop a Jester who wants to take over the land. The film’s ensemble voice cast includes Lea Michele, Dan Aykroyd, Kelsey Grammer, Jim Belushi, and Martin Short.

*The first of this weekend’s two new comedies, ‘Neighbors’, is the latest comedy produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the duo behind last year’s hit comedy ‘This is the End’. In this film, directed by Nicholas Stoller (‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’), Rogen and Rose Byrne star as a couple who move into a new neighborhood with their newborn baby where they come into conflict with their new neighbors, a fraternity house led by Teddy (Zac Efron). The film also stars Dave Franco and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

*Jon Favreau’s newest film ‘Chef’ is a comedy in which he stars as a chef who is fired from his job at a restaurant and starts up a food truck where he looks to both achieve huge success for his cooking and to also re-connect with his family; his wife Inez (Sofia Vergara) and their son Percy (Emjay Anthony). The film also stars Dustin Hoffman, John Leguizamo, Scarlett Johansson, and Robert Downey Jr.

MAY 16- It’ll be two new releases a week for the last three weeks of the month. This week, a Disney sports drama goes against the King of the Monsters.

*A full decade after his last film appearance in ‘Godzilla: Final Wars’, the ‘King of the Monsters’ makes his triumphant return in Legendary Pictures’ ‘Godzilla’, a reboot of the franchise and the second primarily American-produced adaptation of the franchise following 1998’s much-maligned ‘Godzilla’ (though for this film, Toho is still involved, serving as the film’s distributor in Japan). In this film, Godzilla is pitted against a group of mysterious creatures while the military, as well as humanity for that matter, looks to survive the onslaught of destruction. The human cast includes Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, and Bryan Cranston.

*Based on the true story of baseball pitchers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, Disney’s ‘Million Dollar Arm’ stars Jon Hamm as J.B. Bernstein, a sports agent who go to India to seek out new baseball players, where they come across Patel (Madhur Mittal) and Singh (Suraj Sharma).

MAY 23- What could very much be the most anticipated film of the year (and the second superhero film of this month) opens alongside the newest Adam Sandler comedy.

*It’s based off of one of the most iconic comic book storylines of all time. It’s directed by the same man who brought the franchise to relevance in the first place more than a decade ago. And it stars a vast ensemble cast consisting of members from both the original franchise’s trilogy and its new reboot series. It’s ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’, directed by Bryan Singer (for now, we’ll be ignoring the recent allegations made against him as they don’t have any connection to this film) and based off of the 1981 storyline ‘Days of Future Past’ by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. In this film, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is sent back in time by Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) to find their younger selves (James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, respectively) and have them join forces so that they can prevent a key event from happening in order to prevent a dark future where the mutant race is on the verge of extinction. The film’s ensemble cast features actors/actresses from both the original X-Men film trilogy (Halle Berry, Stewart and McKellen, Ellen Page, etc…) and ‘X-Men: First Class’ (McAvoy and Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, etc…) along with new additions including Peter Dinklage, Evan Peters, and Fan Bingbing.

*After previously collaborating in ‘The Wedding Singer’ and ’50 First Dates’, Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore reunite for a third time in ‘Blended’, directed by their ‘Wedding Singer’ director and Sandler regular Frank Coraci. In the film, Sandler and Barrymore’s characters find themselves stuck with each other at an African family resort following a bad first date.

MAY 30- The month will close out with Disney’s latest big-budget fantasy and a comedy from the director of ‘Ted’.

*Following in the footsteps of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’, Disney’s latest live-action fantasy film ‘Maleficent’ is a retelling of the story of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, though told from the perspective of the iconic villainess Maleficent (played by Angelina Jolie). The film is directed by ‘Alice’ and ‘Oz’ production designer Robert Stromberg (in his directorial debut) and also stars Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley, and Brenton Thwaites.

*After the huge success of ‘Ted’ and his fairly successful (albeit rather controversial) stint as host of the Oscars, Seth MacFarlane is back with his latest film, ‘A Million Ways to Die in the West’. In it, he stars as a sheep farmer who trains with a new arrival in town (Charlize Theron) in order to take on a notorious criminal (Liam Neeson). The film also stars Amanda Seyfried, Neil Patrick Harris, Giovanni Ribisi, and Sarah Silverman.

And those are the films that will be coming out in May 2014. Check back next month for Part 5 as we’ll be looking at the June lineup.