2026 is, believe it or not, off to the best start at the movies in years. Maybe even since the Pandemic. This is the year where studios are showing they have learned from their mistakes and have figured out a way to course correct. This is the year where movies take it up a notch. Now that’s not the situation for every movie of course (Scream 7 wasn’t exactly a high mark for the franchise,) but more often than not, this year, the movies seem to be doing things right.
Let’s take The Rip, for example. Actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are best buds in real life. Everyone knows that. And they want to make movies together, like they did for their breakout film, Good Will Hunting. Only so far they haven’t had much success with this. First, was the Ridley Scott movie The Last Duel, which was interesting, but also too long and dull for any rewatches. And then there was Air. The story of the Michael Jordan Nike shoe. Not even the story of Jordan, but the story of the shoe. Not a bad movie, by any means, but also not the most compelling subject matter.
With those two movies, they slowly got closer to current times. The Last Duel was set in medieval times, and then Air was set in the eighties. Well, this year they finally figured it out. The Rip takes place in current times and is a tense cop thriller / action picture. As directed by Joe Carnahan, one of the more interesting gritty action directors around, this movie was great, and an absolute course correction on Ben and Matt’s other recent collaborations.
Next up is Project Hail Mary. The less said about Ryan Gosling’s last foray into outer space, First Man, the better. It was directed by Damien Cazelle at a time when the director seemed like he could do no wrong (coming off of Whiplash and La La Land.) Well, First Man proved that there is a such thing as a two hit wonder, as Cazelle still hasn’t made anything decent since (sorry Babylon.) Regarding Gosling, however, clearly the actor wanted to get back into space. He wanted to prove that he could do a space movie right, and with Project Hail Mary he found the proper directors to take him there. Phil Lord and Chris Miller delivered a movie that was equal parts fascinating, majestic, and funny. This team knocked it out of the park, and Project Hail Mary was an absolute course correction from First Man.
Now we move into the territory of movies that haven’t come out yet. So we don’t really know how good they are, but what we do know is what they seem like. There’s this movie starring Seth Rogen called the Invite. It appears to be about two couples, one night, and a potential sexual experimenting situation. It seems like every member of the two couples are involved, including Ed Norton, Penelope Cruz, and Olivia Wilde. But as interesting as this movie looks, the truth is it was done before, and not so well. There was this movie called the Overnight a few years back with Jason Schwartzman and Adam Scott. And in many ways this movie looks just like that. Now I submit that the Invite will be better, and so this isn’t just a case of “seen it before,” but instead of course correction. With that one we will have to wait and see.
The same goes for the Street Fighter movie. It’s very strange that in the same year, all these decades after the games came out (they are both games of the nineties,) we are getting a new Mortal Kombat movie and a new Street Fighter movie. But in the case of Mortal Kombat, it’s a sequel. The reboot came out in 2021. For Street Fighter, however, we haven’t had a good Street Fighter movie ever. In fact, only one attempt was even memorable. The nineties version starring Van Damme and Raul Julia. But it wasn’t memorable for anything good. Hopefully this new reboot coming out later this year, figured things out. From the trailer it does look like it might be getting things right, really paying tribute to the ridiculous ideas of the game and calling them out… destroying a car with your genes and feet, flying upside down spinning kicks, and shooting fireballs out of one’s hands.
Getting back to movies that already have come out, and why 2026 is off to a nice start, the next example is very unusual. Two movies that are very very similar got released just one week apart. The first was lousy, the second one was great. The movies Ready or Not 2: Here I Come and They Will Kill You. Now, obviously we’re not talking about course correction here, as there was just one week in between movies and so no time to see what went wrong and fix any problems. But what we are talking about now is how even if a movie goes horribly wrong, just one week later there is another movie with the exact same ideas to get it right, and take its place. And that’s a great spot to be in right now. They Will Kill You was so much fun it completely wiped out the bad taste in our mouths from just a week prior with Ready or Not 2.
In fact, of the movies that have come out so far this year, only two were lousy…Scream 7 and Ready or Not 2. Ironically enough, both are horror movies and both are sequels. Everything else pretty much hit the mark. So, yes, this year is off to a nice start. January, February, March, and April are supposed to be the slow months of the year. It used to be that those months were where movies went to die. Studios would drop their worst films then, knowing everybody was interested in the flicks from the previous year that just got nominated. But now, things are different. Credit that to streaming services, giving us so much more content (The RIP was a Netflix movie, and streaming definitely led to a faster turnover rate- from theaters to home release, which is why we have so much content.)
For now, things are looking good. It’s a nostalgia-loving time, which is why we not only have a situation like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter being released in the same year, but also a Masters of the Universe movie. We’ve got two great looking Marvel movies coming out this year in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday. Yes, this year is definitely off to a good start!