Trailer Watch: ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps,’ ‘Thunderbolts*,’ ’28 Years Later,’ ‘The Roses,’ ‘The Life of Chuck’
New trailers, featurettes and more for this week’s Trailer Watch as some of this spring and summer’s most anticipated films get closer to being in a theater near you.
A pair of Marvel films, The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Thunderbolts* aim to be doing something very different for the franchise, both visually and from a storytelling standpoint. We also have a featurette for Jurassic World Rebirth, zombies return in Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, Jay Roach’s The Roses, a reimagining of the 1989 film The War of the Roses, starring Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch, and 2024 TIFF People’s Choice Award winner The Life of Chuck from Mike Flanagan and starring Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Mark Hamill.
Rounding out the blockbusters are two independent films from Vertical Entertainment: the gay comedy thriller I Don’t Understand You, starring Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells, and Sharp Corner with Ben Foster and Cobie Smulders.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Showcasing Marvel’s First Family, Silver Surfer, H.E.R.B.I.E. and the retro-futuristic, 1960s vibe, Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps introduces Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/Human Torch Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they face their most daunting challenge yet. Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). And if Galactus’ plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren’t bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal.
The action adventure also stars Paul Walter Hauser, John Malkovich, Natasha Lyonne and Sarah Niles. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is directed by Matt Shakman, produced by Kevin Feige and executive produced by Louis D’Esposito, Grant Curtis and Tim Lewis.
Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Pictures will release The Fantastic Four: First Steps in theaters on July 25.
Thunderbolts*
In Thunderbolts* Marvel Studios assembles an unconventional team of antiheroes—Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster and John Walker. After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, these disillusioned castoffs must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts. Will this dysfunctional group tear themselves apart, or find redemption and unite as something much more before it’s too late?
The film stars Academy Award nominee Florence Pugh, Academy Award nominee Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, Chris Bauer, Wendell Pierce, with David Harbour, with Hannah John-Kamen, and Emmy Award winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Jake Schreier directs “Thunderbolts*” and Kevin Feige is the producer. Louis D’Esposito, Brian Chapek and Jason Tamez serve as executive producers. The screenplay was written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, and the story is by Eric Pearson.
Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts* releases May 2, 2025 in U.S. theaters.
Jurassic World Rebirth – Featurette
A new era is born. This summer, three years after the Jurassic World trilogy concluded with each film surpassing $1 billion at the global box office, the enduring Jurassic series evolves in a new direction with Jurassic World Rebirth.
Anchored by Academy Award nominee Scarlett Johansson, Emmy and SAG nominee Jonathan Bailey and two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, this action-packed new chapter sees an extraction team race to the most dangerous place on Earth, an island research facility for the original Jurassic Park, inhabited by the worst of the worst that were left behind.
Also starring acclaimed international stars Rupert Friend and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, the film is directed by Gareth Edwards (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) from a script by original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp.
Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. The three most colossal creatures across land, sea and air within that tropical biosphere hold, in their DNA, the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind.
Johansson plays skilled covert operations expert Zora Bennett, contracted to lead a skilled team on a top-secret mission to secure the genetic material. When Zora’s operation intersects with a civilian family whose boating expedition was capsized by marauding aquatic dinos, they all find themselves stranded on a forbidden island that had once housed an undisclosed research facility for Jurassic Park. There, in a terrain populated by dinosaurs of vastly different species, they come face-to-face with a sinister, shocking discovery that has been hidden from the world for decades.
Ali is Duncan Kincaid, Zora’s most trusted team member; Critics Choice and Olivier Award winner Jonathan Bailey (Wicked, Bridgerton) plays paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis; Emmy nominee Rupert Friend (Homeland, Obi-Wan Kenobi) appears as Big Pharma representative Martin Krebs and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (The Lincoln Lawyer, Murder on the Orient Express) plays Reuben Delgado, the father of the shipwrecked civilian family.
The cast includes Luna Blaise (Manifest), David Iacono (The Summer I Turned Pretty) and Audrina Miranda (Lopez vs. Lopez) as Reuben’s family. The film also features, as members of Zora and Krebs’ crews, Philippine Velge (Station Eleven), Bechir Sylvain (BMF) and Ed Skrein (Deadpool).
Jurassic World Rebirth is directed by BAFTA winner Edwards from a script by Koepp (War of the Worlds), based on characters created by Michael Crichton. The film is produced by Oscar nominee Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley, both longtime Jurassic franchise producers and of last summer’s blockbuster, Twisters. The film is executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Denis L. Stewart and Jim Spencer.
28 Years Later
Academy Award-winning director Danny Boyle and Academy Award-nominated writer Alex Garland reunite for 28 Years Later, a terrifying new story set in the world created by 28 Days Later.
It’s been almost three decades since the rage virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory, and now, still in a ruthlessly enforced quarantine, some have found ways to exist amidst the infected. One such group of survivors lives on a small island connected to the mainland by a single, heavily-defended causeway. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.
Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes, Emmy Award winner Jodie Comer, Jack O’Connell, Edvin Ryding and Alfie Williams.
A Sony Pictures release, 28 Years Later will be released in theaters on June 20.
The Roses
In The Roses, all seems easy for picture-perfect couple Ivy (Olivia Colman) and Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch): successful careers, a loving marriage, great kids. But beneath the façade of their supposed ideal life, a storm is brewing – as Theo’s career nosedives while Ivy’s own ambitions take off, a tinderbox of fierce competition and hidden resentment ignites.
The Roses is a reimagining of the 1989 classic film The War of the Roses, based on the novel by Warren Adler. The film co-stars Andy Samberg, Allison Janney, Belinda Bromilow, Sunita Mani, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Demetriou, Zoë Chao and Kate McKinnon.
Directed by Jay Roach from a screenplay by Tony McNamara. Produced by Jay Roach, Michelle Graham, p.g.a., Adam Ackland, p.g.a., Leah Clarke, p.g.a., Ed Sinclair, p.g.a., Tom Carver. In theaters from Searchlight Pictures on August 29.
The Life of Chuck
A life-affirming, genre-bending story based on Stephen King’s novella about three chapters in the life of an ordinary man named Charles Krantz, Tom Hiddleston stars alongside Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mark Hamill, Karen Gillan, Jacob Trembley. Directed and written by Mike Flanagan (Midnight Mass).
Winner of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award, The Life of Chuck is a NEON release and will be in select theaters on June 6 and wide on June 13.
Sharp Corner
A troubled man begins to spiral, consumed by the fatal car crashes caused by the sharp corner in front of his house. As his sick obsession takes hold, he places his wife and son in jeopardy, threatening to permanently break the family apart. Starring Ben Foster, Cobie Smulders, and Gavin Drea. Directed by Jason Buxton. Vertical Entertainment will release Sharp Corner on May 9.
I Don’t Understand You
Dom and Cole embark on a picture-perfect Italian vacation before their impending adoption but find themselves lost in a foreign land with no cell service, zero comprehension of the language, and escalating turmoil that could explode at any moment. Starring Nick Kroll, Andrew Rannells, and Amanda Seyfried .Directed by Brian Crano and David Joseph Craig. Vertical Entertainment will release I Don’t Understand You on June 6.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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