Disney news: Get excited for ‘The Amateur,’ ‘Tron: Ares’ & ‘Avatar: Fire And Ash’ in 2025
Last week, Disney rolled out its slate of motion pictures slated for release in 2025 at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.
Animation, comedy and hopeful blockbusters comprise an exciting slate from the House of Mouse.
Film News Blitz’s David Bason picks his five Disney films to watch out for in 2025.
The Amateur
Arriving in cinemas on April 11, The Amateur looks set to be a compelling spy thriller starring Rami Malek as CIA decoder Heller, who takes matters into his own hands after his bosses prevent him from avenging the death of his wife in the field.
From Disney’s 20th Century Studios arm and director James Hawes, who helmed the first six episodes of the incredible Slow Horses spy drama on Apple TV+ starring Gary Oldman.
Throwing in a supporting cast that includes Rachel Brosnahan, Jon Bernthal, and Laurence Fishburne makes it clear that this isn’t one to miss.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Marvel Studios finally getting the chance to produce its own Fantastic Four movie has been a long time coming, and First Steps has all the makings of a return to form for the MCU.
A period piece set in the 1960s, First Steps has brought in fantastic stars to portray Marvel’s first family, including Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm.
Director Matt Shakman has been handed duties to craft this film after his exemplary work on Wandavision and what’s more, First Steps is a stepping stone to next year’s Avengers: Doomsday.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is in cinemas on July 25.
Tron: Ares
15 years after Tron: Legacy, the third film in this science-fiction franchise is set for release on October 10 and sees the digital and real worlds collide.
The AI programme, Ares, is sent on a dangerous mission in the real world in director Joachim Rønning’s film, which stars Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Hasan Minhaj, Jodie Turner-Smith, Arturo Castro, and Cameron Monaghan, with Gillian Anderson and franchise mainstay Jeff Bridges.
A new trailer was released to the public shortly after CinemaCon and it looks, dark, dystopian and apt for our times when nerves around AI’s impact on the wider world is more prevalent than ever.
Predator: Badlands
2022’s Prey was an incredible spin on the Predator franchise from director Dan Trachtenberg, whereby Naru, a skilled warrior of the Comanche Nation, fought off the fearsome alien hunter in an all-new setting for the decades-spanning series.
Trachtenberg's return with a follow-up entry into the Predator franchise should be widely celebrated.
Badlands will star Elle Fanning in the lead, a welcome addition to any film franchise, with the story “set in the future on a remote planet, where a young Predator, outcast from his clan, finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Fanning) and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary,” according to the official synopsis.
Predator: Badlands is expected in cinemas on November 7.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Fans had to wait 13 years between the biggest film of all time, Avatar, and the third-biggest film of all time, Avatar: The Way of Water.
The second entry in James Cameron’s science fiction franchise is the first of four follow-ups to the 2009 original, and luckily, we haven’t got to wait much longer for film three.
Avatar: Fire and Ash is set to be the big Christmas blockbuster when it lands in cinemas on December 19, and it introduces an antagonistic clan of Na’vi, the Ash people, led by Varang.
It’s an exciting new development to have light and dark within the Na’vi, rather than having the black and white nature of colonising humans versus an indigenous species.
Cameron’s Avatar films always make a big impact, so it will be exciting to see what this instalment has in store.
What else does Disney have in store for the big screen in 2025?
Marvel’s Thunderbolts* is set to introduce a team of anti-heroes led by Sebastian Stan’s Bucky up against the villianous Void with Florence Pugh’s Black Widow, David Harbour’s Red Guardian, Wyatt Russell’s US Agent, Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost and Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster.
May 2 will bring audiences back into the MCU, will this entry be a hit?
The slate continues with Disney’s live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch, due in cinemas on May 23 from Oscar-nominated filmmaker Dean Fleischer Camp.
June 20 will see the latest Disney Pixar film grace theatres, Elio, which follows the title character (voiced by Yonas Kibreab), a space fanatic with an active imagination and a huge alien obsession.
When Elio is beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization with representatives from galaxies far and wide, he's all in for the epic undertaking.
Mistakenly identified as Earth's leader, Elio must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms, navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions, and somehow discover who and where he is truly meant to be.
Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are reuniting at long last for August 8’s Freakier Friday, putting a new spin on the body swap classic.
Searchlight Pictures is bringing an all-star cast to the reimagining of the 1989 classic, The War of the Roses, based on the Warren Adler novel.
Directed by Jay Roach and written by Tony McNamara, August 29 will see an ensemble including Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Samberg, Allison Janney, Belinda Bromilow, Sunita Mani, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Demetriou, Zoë Chao, and Kate McKinnon grace the screen in The Roses.
Sex Education star Emma Mackey will appear in 20th Century Studios' Ella McCay, a new comedy written and directed by Disney Legend James L. Brooks, creator of Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News.
In cinemas September 19, Ella McCay is about the complicated politics that arise when a young woman's stressful career clashes with her chaotic family life.
Mackey is joined by Woody Harrelson, Kumail Nanjiani, Ayo Edebiri and Jack Lowden.
November 26 will see audiences delighted by the animated sequel Zootropolis 2, with returning characters Nick and Judy on a new investigative mission.
As of yet, there’s no release date for the Jeremy Allen White starring Bruce Springsteen biopic from 20th Century Studios, Deliver Me from Nowhere.
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