Take a peek at the movie slate for May: whats big, whats risky, what you should be looking forward to.
The Big Dog in the Yard
Once the summertime hits, it gets hard to settle on just one behemoth for the month. The first monster out of the gate comes this weekend with the third installment of the Iron Man series. Writer Shane Black has been getting a lot of credit in the early reviews for taking the film down a darker road. Its funny, when Iron Man debuted in 2008, it was seen as the antidote to the increasingly dark Batman movies, but now I guess a darker Tony Stark is a way to differentiate Iron Man 3 from The Avengers.
At mid-month, the next contender for summers big monster comes, with Star Trek Into Darkness. J.J. Abrams adds Benedict Cumberbatch -- as well as some terrestrial devastation -- to the mix, just before he starts to divide his space endeavors between Star Treks and Star Wars. Itll be interesting to see if this movie can keep up with its competitors or if were looking at a blockbuster landscape where the Marvel movies are just on a higher plane than everything else.
Riskiest Gamble
Baz Luhrmanns The Great Gatsby is going for it in every respect, from casting to music to a manic tone and crammed-in-at-every-angle visuals. This ended up working quite well with Moulin Rouge!, and if Shakespeare can prove malleable enough for Romeo + Juliet;s Bazmark treatment, surely the F. Scott Fitzgerald literary classic shouldnt prove to be insurmountable. But putting an expensive-looking movie into a marketplace that may only have a niche to accommodate it could make people look bad if its success is more limited. If its a smash, though, its an even bigger accomplishment.
Performances to Watch Out For
With the special effects taking top building in most of the major releases, there are compelling performances to be found in some of the smaller releases. Im thinking of Greta Gerwigs star turn in Noah Baumbachs Frances Ha (which Gerwig co-wrote, and whose trailer we have already enthused about), or the three young protagonists in The Kings of Summer (or, for that matter, Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally, and Alison Brie in that same movie). Over on the blockbuster side, I have become more and more enamored with Jesse Eisenberg seemingly once again channeling that Zuckerberg swagger for the illusionist crime thriller Now You See Me.
Toughest Opening-Weekend Decision What to do on May 24th if youre feeling dude-ish? All of a sudden, bro audiences will have to make the choice between Fast and Furious 6 and The Hangover, Part III. Both involve fast cars and dudes being dudes (though only one features Zach Galifianakis singing like an angel at a funeral). I guess it comes down to whether youre into comedy or drama that weekend? I suppose you could always ditch both, trade in your dudes for Beyonce, and see the animated Epic.
Counterprogramming Options Its almost more fun to track the summer counter programming than it is to follow the blockbusters. While the bigger rooms will be blasting the lily-white 20s troubles in The Great Gatsby, Craig Robinson, Kerry Washington, and David Alan Grier will be doing the Meet the Parents thing in Peeples. And at the end of the month, Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglijs ecoterrorism thriller The East should serve as a handy alternative to those looking to avoid the crowds at the post-apocalypic After Earth.
Best Movie to See With Friends
Speaking of which, Im hoping to gather SOME friends to go check out After Earth with me. A post-apocalyptic, abandoned Earth, plus M. Night Shyamalan, plus Will Smith doing a crazy strange accent? How are you NOT insanely curious? That same weekend, youve got the horror flick The Purge, which offers the tantalizing notion, "What if, for one night a year, all crime was legal?" You know, to help control the prison population! Think about it!
Best Movie to See Alone
Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke are back again with Before Midnight (a 2013 Tribeca Film Festival film, of course), delving into the deepest reaches of romantic relationships and, in this installment, marriage and kids. This is definitely one to sit with and think about, just you, your thoughts, and Linklater/Hawke/Delpys pristine dialogue.
Previously: Where Can You Find the 2013 Tony Nominees at the Movies?
--
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Take a peek at the movie slate for May: whats big, whats risky, what you should be looking forward to. 
