When your goofy, low-budget, horror sci-fi about an AI doll that runs amok grosses $180 million, you would be foolish not to make another. Three years after M3gan cleaned up at the box office, M3gan 2 sets the tone for 2025. Yes, it is going to be a year of sequels, remakes and series continuations.
Economically, this makes sense, as studios recover from covid-19, the writers’ strike and bloated budgets. Artistically, the news is better than it might appear: there is enough creativity going into these projects to make me hope that the industry is returning to more inventive filmmaking.
A few traces of this can be seen in the third Tron movie, Tron: Ares (directed by Joachim Rønning, best known for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead men tell no tales), which at the very least promises us Jared Leto as an AI out to offer humanity a deal it cannot refuse.
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Gareth Edwards, known for Rogue One (a rare hit for the Disney Star Wars franchise) and The Creator (an ambitious original that should have been better than it was), has been handed the reins of the Jurassic World franchise. has a script by screenwriter David Koepp, who wrote the original Jurassic Park, so let’s dare to be optimistic about it.
We can also hope for good things from James Cameron, who promises that , the third instalment of his five-film project, will immeasurably enrich the story. It may have to, frankly, but the “ash people” – fiery and unsympathetic versions of the Na’vi – do sound fun.
No special pleading will be needed to bring cinema-goers flocking to 28 Years Later. The film has been stuck in various circles of development hell for well over a decade (and, yes, it was once called 28 Months Later). Now, like buses, three arrive nearly at once. The next, 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple, was shot back-to back with 2025’s release; an unnamed third is in the wings.
28 Years Later looks to be a rather gimmicky, lightweight production – it was shot using the new iPhone, plus many dinky attachments. It is bound to have great moments, though, since it is a reunion of original director Danny Boyle, original screenwriter Alex Garland and an older, wiser Cillian Murphy reprising his lead role from the original movie.
Moving on from sequels, there is much guilty pleasure to be had in anticipating 2025’s roster of remakes. In 2022, Guillermo del Toro needlessly complicated Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio in an act of literary sacrilege for which I have yet to forgive him. Redemption may be in the offing with his Frankenstein, starring Oscar Isaac as the agonised doctor. If not, then Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! promises an iconoclastic take on Mary Shelley’s undead creation. Christian Bale in a sci-fi, comedy musical – it sounds like a blast.
We also have the latest from director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead and Baby Driver), whose version of Stephen King’s The Running Man, about a dystopian game show, promises a more faithful adaptation of the original material than the 1987 version with Arnold Schwarzenegger (which was, to be fair, a lot of fun).
Elsewhere, Bugonia is an English-language retread of South Korean director Jang Joon-hwan’s Save the Green Planet! It is about a couple of conspiracy theorists trying to save Earth from a high-powered (and possibly alien) CEO. Yorgos Lanthimos directs; Emma Stone and Jessie Plemons star.
It has become a slightly tiresome habit among makers of original films that they let nothing slip about their stories. In that spirit, we have Flowervale Street by writer-director David Robert Mitchell, which stars Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor in an alternate 1980s for reasons that are firmly under wraps – although you may have to wait till 2026 if the rumours of a reschedule are true. Chris Pratt’s cop-on-the-run adventure Mercy swears it is sci-fi without telling us why.
Maggie Gyllenhaal's latest promises an iconoclastic take on Mary Shelley's undead creation
In more expansive mode, there are a couple of promising “originals” – basically new adaptations. In 2017, Anthony and Joe Russo got hold of Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel Electric State. They said that the story wasn’t strong enough and instead came up with their own, rather generic-sounding, screen (the AIs are fighting for their rights, again) using Stålenhag’s 1990s-inflected visuals. It does look wonderful.
For sheer wit and mischief, I am willing to bet the most memorable film of the year will be Mickey 17, Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s adaptation of Edward Ashton’s sci-fi novel Mickey7. Robert Pattinson plays an “expendable”: a disposable, easily regenerated blue-collar employee in a terraforming company. Watch the and tell me you don’t agree.
The art and science of writing science fiction
Take your science fiction writing into a new dimension during this weekend devoted to building new worlds and new works of art
