The summer of 2025 is upon us, and the summer movie season is under way, with the likes of Mission Impossible: Tom Cruise Is a Freaking Maniac Running and Smiling in My Spicy Nightmares, as well as Lilo & Stitch: Disney, You Are Really Starting to Push It With the Live-Action Shit Remakes of Animated Films, and I Might Not Love You Anymore.
A glimpse at the remaining schedule reveals that, hey, this might actually be a well-balanced, fun summer movie season. I realize this counts as crazy optimism for me, but when I’m hopeful, I’m hopeful!
I’m so hopeful that I was up on the roof of my building a short while ago, singing the old timey hit “The Summer Movie Season Might Not Suck Ass for a Change!” This song actually doesn’t exist, so it led to much confusion and consternation with the neighbors. They wanted to sing along and dance with me, but I was just spewing unintelligible, made-up-on-the-spot lyrics at high volume. I was also naked and throwing water balloons at all of them.
I have issues. It was an ugly scene. Lawsuits pending.
Will the DC Universe get back on track (Superman)? Will the Marvel Universe get back on track (The Fantastic Four: First Steps)? Will Tom Cruise—while performing his own stunts, of course—be consumed by a shark, then shat out its ass, with the Tom Cruise shark turd then being thrown off the Burj Khalifa by Rebecca De Mornay (who played the sex worker from Risky Business) and winding up in the rotors of a flaming helicopter piloted by none other than Tom Cruise, completing the strangest, most hardcore stuntman cycle in cinema history?
At last count, Pedro Pascal is in 783 movies this summer season, which makes him the winner of the Bob Grimm Cinema Whore-Face Award. Congratulations, Pedro! Be proud! It’s the Summer of Pedro!
Let the previews commence!
Bring Her Back (May 30): The Philippou brothers, the team that made the ultra-creepy Talk to Me, return with what looks to be another fine horror film in a year already rich in good horror movies. Early word is that Bring Her Back is grim and depressing—which makes it the perfect movie to kick the summer movie season into happy high gear!
Karate Kid: Legends (May 30): I was enjoying Cobra Kai on Netflix for a little while, but it got played out after the 75th crazily choreographed high school hallway fight in which the entire student body was kicking each other in the face, and while everybody should’ve gone to jail, nobody even got detention. Will the success of the TV show help this franchise’s return to the big screen? I’m predicting a big no. This one is going to bomb.
Dogma (June 5): One of Kevin Smith’s better movies, the religious comedy Dogma, gets a re-release. This one hasn’t been available for streaming anywhere (other than a copy somebody uploaded to YouTube). The theatrical run will be followed by a streaming date. Hooray!
The Phoenician Scheme (June 6): I’m going through a stretch where Wes Anderson’s approach has started to grind on me. He’s made so many movies I love, but he’s gotten a little too cute the last couple of times out.
Ballerina (June 6): Man, I don’t want to see Keanu Reeves as John Wick anymore, yet here he is, playing John Wick and battling Ana de Armas. John Wick 4 was perfect. Stop. Let the character go. We don’t need another Hannibal Lecter scenario. (Actually, Red Dragon was pretty good.)
The Life of Chuck (June 6): The Stephen King short story is a classic, and director Mike Flanagan is the right man for the job. It’s not scary—this one is a feel-good drama!
Pavements (June 6): A strange-looking documentary about a wonderfully strange and beautiful band. This is one of the titles giving me hope that the summer will have more to offer than explosions and Tom Cruise running while maniacally smiling.
Dangerous Animals (June 6): A serial killer (Jai Courtney) plans to feed some folks he kidnapped to a bunch of sharks. That’s all I need to hear. I’m in.
How to Train Your Dragon (June 13): Disney started these live-action remakes of classic animated films, and now this non-Disney franchise is chiming in. This trend needs to stop, although I’d welcome a live-action remake of South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.
Materialists (June 13): Pedro Pascal alert! He’s in this one!
Elio (June 20): Pixar movie alert! This means at least one animated movie this summer has a shot at being something better than lame.
28 Years Later (June 20): “BOOTS, BOOTS, BOOTS … MOVING UP AND DOWN AGAIN!” Best trailer ever! Danny Boyle, 23 years ago, asked the question: “Say, what if the zombies could run, rather than lumbering about Romero style?” Now he returns to the franchise that changed the zombie genre forever. They all run around like maniacs now.
F1 (June 27): This looks like formulaic moviemaking for a Formula 1 movie. Brad Pitt is the old guy forced to train a younger guy on the true way to drive a car really, really, really, really fast. Isn’t this the 5,000th time this movie has been made?
M3GAN 2.0 (June 27): This sequel looks really stupid.
Jurassic World: Rebirth, aka This Dino Shit Is Never Going to Stop (July 2): The Jurassic Park movies ranged from good to great. The Jurassic World movies have ranged from OK to total shite. In this one, people insist upon going to a place where cloned dinosaurs will likely eat you … again.
40 Acres (July 2): This looks like a very different kind of cannibal movie—one of the summer movie season’s more interesting and complex offerings.
Superman (July 11): Hey, kids, gather ’round. We’re gonna do Superman … AGAIN. You’ve all heard me moan about Henry Cavill/Zack Snyder’s Superman being a whiny bitch. It looks like James Gunn read my moaning columns and said, “Say, Bob Grimm, you are right. Superman is supposed to be joyous and fun, and not some crybaby pissing and moaning about his daddy and mommy! I’m going to make a Superman just for you! Coming right up, Bob!” Yeah, the James Gunn-wanting-to-make-a-movie-for-me thing is just a geek fantasy, but I do want to have fun watching a Superman movie again, and I certainly hope the reliable Gunn will bring the joy.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (July 18): The Gorton’s fish-stick guy is back with his stupid hook, and Jennifer Love Hewitt gets a summer job in this reboot.
Eddington (July 18): Director Ari Aster, an Ethan Coen doppelganger, delivered two classic horror films out of the gate with Hereditary and Midsommar. Then he confused the hell out of everybody (in a good way) with Joaquin Phoenix in Beau Is Afraid. Here, he reunites with Phoenix and casts, yes, Pedro Pascal (Pedro Pascal alert!) and Emma Stone in another dark comedy that seems to be splitting critics at the film festivals.
Smurfs (July 18): They are still trying to make the Smurfs happen again. I used to buy Smurfs toys for girls as gifts in the ’80s when I was in high school. I didn’t have much luck with girls in high school. Come to think of it, I haven’t had much luck with women the last decade or so. Actually, scratch that—I haven’t had much luck with women my entire life! I blame the Smurfs. Fuck you, Smurfs. Fuck you in your stupid blue asses. This is probably why I hate the Avatar movies so much—too much blue. Too Smurf-like. All the Smurfs, and the Na’vi, can go straight to hell.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (July 25): This is the other reason (besides Superman) I think this summer is going to be a good time for superhero movies again. PEDRO PASCAL ALERT … HE PLAYS MISTER FANTASTIC IN THIS ONE!
Happy Gilmore 2 (July 25): Adam “The Sandman” Sandler brings back his most beloved character for another go-round. It’s hard to believe Chubbs (Carl Weathers) is really dead. PEDRO PASCAL ALERT: PEDRO PASCAL IS NOT IN THIS MOVIE, UNLESS IT IS A SURPRISE CAMEO!
Bambi: The Reckoning (July 25): People have a bad time in the forest when they get attacked by a mutant deer angry about his mom’s death. No, this isn’t the long-rumored live remake of Disney’s Bambi. Disney is not endorsing this, but they damn well should have. This is absolutely the route they should go rather than their wasteful note-for-note live remakes. Get some balls, Disney!
Together (July 30): Body horror was an Oscar player last year with The Substance, and now Dave Franco and Alison Brie are going for critical and gory glory with Together. A copyright-infringement lawsuit was just filed against the producers by the writer/director of an indie film called Better Half. Hopefully it won’t hold up the release, because, premise stolen or not, I really want to see this one.
The Naked Gun (Aug. 1): I think Liam Neeson is a painfully unfunny guy. That stupid shit he did in Ted 2 with the Trix box, and the trailer for this reboot, have me dreading this trip to the theater. Leslie Nielsen is Frank Drebin! Forever and always. Casting Liam Neeson as Drebin, or Drebin Jr., or whatever, is like casting Louis C.K. as Rambo Jr.
Freakier Friday (Aug. 8): In this sequel, Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis switch bodies during a Sean Combs “Freak Off” party, thus qualifying this one as far freakier than the “freaky” original. Some 25,000 gallons of baby oil were used during filming and, quite disgustingly, more than half of that was consumed.
Weapons (Aug. 8): Another interesting-looking horror offering! Julia Garner stars in a film about disappearing children. I hope she fares better in this one than she did in that awful Wolf Man.
Nobody 2 (Aug. 15): Lil’ Bobby Odenkirk returns to kick more ass in a film that looks to be a little brighter than its darkly comic predecessor. The trailer parodying the Vacation movies has me thinking this could be fun.
Honey Don’t (Aug. 22): Director Ethan Cohen, an Ari Aster doppelganger, offers his second film in a proposed lesbian road-comedy trilogy starring Margaret Qualley.
Americana (Aug. 22): I’m thinking this has a shot at being the summer’s funniest movie. Writer-director Tony Tost makes his feature-film debut with a cast including Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser and Simon Rex. It looks like a very twisted modern-day Western.
Jaws (Aug. 29): There will be a lot of re-releases this summer, but none is more notable than this. My all-time favorite movie, probably until the day I die, is celebrating its 50th anniversary. I saw it as a 7-year-old. Please, fathers everywhere: Take your young sons to see this movie, and allow their young, developing minds to witness the big-screen grandeur of Robert Shaw being eaten alive by a gigantic great white shark. Witnessing Shaw spouting blood out of his mouth will make your son a man!
Caught Stealing (Aug. 29): Austin Butler and Vincent D’Onofrio star for director Darren Aronofsky in this ’90s-based NYC thriller. Let’s all hope for a return to form for Aronofsky. His last narrative film was The Whale. I was not a fan. This guy did Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain (a terribly underrated film), so hopes are high.
The Roses (Aug. 29): A remake you never thought you would see: 1989’s The War of the Roses gets a redo, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman replacing Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. PEDRO PASCAL ALERT! PEDRO IS NOT IN THIS MOVIE, BUT DON’T WE ALL KIND OF WISH HE WAS PLAYING THE LAWYER ROLE DANNY DEVITO PLAYED IN THE ORIGINAL?
The Conjuring: Last Rites (Sept. 5): Supposed to be the last one. Doubt it.
The Long Walk (Sept. 12): Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour) co-stars in this Stephen King adaptation about a group of teenage boys who participate in a very nasty walking contest. Mark Hamill has a prominent role.
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (Sept. 12): Supposed to be the last one. Doubt it.
Spinal Tap II (Sept. 12): It looks like the summer movie season will end with the long-awaited return of Spinal Tap, with director Rob Reiner and much of the original cast coming back. Supposed to be the last one. Probably is. PEDRO PASCAL ALERT! THERE’S STILL TIME TO GET INTO THIS ONE, PEDRO! GIVE ROB REINER A CALL!
