We’re nearing the end of the year and making our top lists of movies of the decade and whatnot. But amid movies past and movies present, let us not forget the movies yet to come. Movies we might have heard about or suspected become reality faster than you’d think. Or, as is also common, ones we were sure to see suddenly go “poof” like some kind of cloud of donut powder. Warner Bros. has come through this fine December day ( via Deadline) with a bevy of release date updates, announcements, and deletions for some of their biggest and most anticipated movies. It’s a Decemberween miracle.
The first major one is a release date for The Matrix 4. Lana Wachowski’s return to the saga that put her on the map will hit theaters on May 21, 2021. That movie will see returning series stars Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Jada Pinkett Smith. They’ll join newbos Watchmen‘s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Frozen‘s Jonathan Groff, and human dynamo Neil Patrick Harris. How Neo and Trinity could possibly come back—given how they got dead in the last movie—is a mystery. But it’s a red pill we’re excited to take!
Warner Bros
Another movie we’ve been following (or not, as the case may be) is The Flash solo movie. It’s gone through roughly 53 different directors and writers as the DCEU gets back on track following Justice League. Now we know the Scarlet Speedster will hit the screens July 1, 2022. It director Andy Muschietti is still attached to direct with a screenplay from Birds of Prey writer Christina Hodson.
The next movie in the Conjuring universe, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, now has a release date. Clearly these movies don’t have a ton of lead time, because it’s going to come out in less than a year. September 11, 2020 puts it just in time for Halloween, and about a month before Blumhouse and Universal’s Halloween Kills. Gonna be a good year for horror franchise sequels.
Warner Bros
Some good news and bad news about the Mortal Kombat movie. The good news is, the movie’s release date has moved up, two months. The bad news is it’s moving from March 2021 to January 2021. Even as blockbuster season moves earlier and earlier in the year, January is still where movies go to die. Tough break, MK.
But with all this great news, we get some sad news. Taika Waititi’s live-action Akira is now no longer on the release schedule. It had been on the slate for May 21, 2021; that’s now when Matrix 4 is gonna happen. The Akira movie had also, according to Deadline, been allocated $18.5 million in California tax credits in the spring.
Toho
Akira, based on the Katsuhiro Otomo’s landmark manga series and later groundbreaking 1988 anime, has been in the works for live action for decades. But with Waititi’s hiring, it looked like the movie would actually happen. It was supposed to go into production in July of this year. But, darn the luck, Disney wanted Waititi to return for Thor: Love and Thunder which has officially put Akira on the back burner. Now with it off of the slate, we imagine it’ll be a while yet before we finally see it. And maybe Disney’s just flexing because James Gunn has to finish The Suicide Squad for WB before Guardians 3.
Featured Image: Warner Bros
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!
