An essen­tial guide to 2017’s sum­mer blockbusters

Sum­mer block­buster sea­son, once strict­ly lim­it­ed to May through to July, has grad­u­al­ly expand­ed beyond the sun­nier months. Once pop­u­lar fran­chis­es start­ed drop­ping entries in April and August to great suc­cess, we were set on a path that lead us to huge movies like Kong: Skull Island and Logan released as ear­ly as March.

The steady expan­sion of this spec­ta­cle-heavy phase of the film year means we now have more tent­pole enter­tain­ment to look for­ward to than ever before. With that in mind, here’s our essen­tial guide to this year’s biggest block­busters, which promise to take us from the beach­es of World War Two to the far­thest reach­es of out­er space.

Released 14 April

The jour­ney from the street rac­ing of The Fast and the Furi­ous to the super­heroics of the franchise’s lat­er instal­ments is about as bewil­der­ing as the incon­sis­ten­cy of its nam­ing con­ven­tions. This spi­ral into enter­tain­ing melo­dra­ma has done it some favours though, as the car stunts are kept fresh through the some pret­ty auda­cious for­ays into dif­fer­ent gen­res. Fast and Furi­ous 8 presents us with the mys­tery of why Dom (Vin Diesel) has gone rogue, betray­ing his makeshift fam­i­ly to join Char­l­ize Theron’s Cipher, a vil­lain with the tech­nol­o­gy to remote con­trol cars and some kind of hold over Dom. Jack God­win

Released 28 April

The first Guardians of the Galaxy was one of Marvel’s best, a joke-stuffed space romp that pro­vid­ed wel­come com­ic relief amid a glut of self-seri­ous Avengers movies. The fun quo­tient and killer sound­track both look to have been ramped up for the sequel. We catch up with the crew a few months after the first film end­ed, as they jour­ney across the cos­mos in hope of find­ing Star-Lord’s father, Ego (Kurt Rus­sell). With James Gunn pen­ning the script and return­ing to the director’s chair, expect more mix­tape-wor­thy tracks and humor­ous inter­galac­tic mis­un­der­stand­ings. Oh, and Baby Groot. John Wadsworth

Released 12 May

Set 10 years after 2012’s Prometheus, Alien: Covenant fol­lows a group on the colony ship Covenant as it lands on an unchart­ed plan­et seek­ing a new home. The sta­bil­i­ty of the plan­et and its Earth-like crops sug­gest that there’s already intel­li­gent life here, one that may not be so friend­ly to the new set­tlers. As expect­ed, things go south soon after, and the crew find them­selves fight­ing for sur­vival against what appears to be a new strain of xenomorph creatures.

How­ev­er dis­ap­point­ing its clum­sy attempts to solve the mys­ter­ies at the heart of the Alien mythos were, Prometheus showed a lot of promise, and it’s hard not to get back on-board with the bril­liant trail­ers released for its sequel. Covenant looks to return to the sci-fi slash­er premise of the orig­i­nal Alien and a form of xenomorph that’s much clos­er to the time­less HR Giger designs. JG

Released 12 May

Hav­ing tack­led one British lit­er­ary leg­end with his pair of Sher­lock Holmes films, Guy Ritchie has delved into folk­lore for his next fea­ture. The sto­ry of the boy who drew the sword from the stone is a famil­iar one, but this King Arthur – who lives in a broth­el and runs the back streets of Lon­dini­um – is a great deal grit­ti­er than pre­vi­ous inter­pre­ta­tions. The trail­ers released so far have been decid­ed­ly var­ied in tone, with songs from Led Zep­pelin and folk trou­ba­dour Sam Lee sound­track­ing a mish­mash of dif­fer­ent moods and cam­era tricks. We’re inter­est­ed to see how this one turns out. JW

Released 2 June

The DC Extend­ed Uni­verse is still hold­ing out for a hero fol­low­ing last year’s two crit­i­cal duds, the bloat­ed Bat­man v Super­man: Dawn of Jus­tice and the tonal­ly errat­ic Sui­cide Squad. Call us over­ly opti­mistic, but we think Won­der Woman might just save the day. The plot sees Princess Diana of The­mysci­ra (Gal Gadot) leave her Ama­zon­ian island home with plans to end World War One, with the help of intel­li­gence offi­cer Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). Direc­tor Pat­ty Jenk­ins has described the film as Super­man meets Casablan­ca meets Indi­ana Jones. We’re not exact­ly sure what that adds up to, but count us in. JW

Released 2 June

Based on the long-run­ning action dra­ma TV series, Bay­watch is being revived by Hor­ri­ble Boss­es direc­tor Seth Gor­don. Dwayne John­son is the no-non­sense leader of ​‘the elite of the elite’, the LA Life­guard team that in a bid for more fund­ing employs the dis­graced Olympian ath­lete Matt (Zac Efron). When the two mis­matched part­ners come across a crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy they have to put their dif­fer­ences aside. The hook with Bay­watch is the self-aware comedic tone inher­it­ed from the 21 Jump Street reboot and its sequel. Hope­ful­ly this will be anoth­er case of a bad idea turn­ing into a great movie. JG

Released 9 June

Thou­sands of years ago, an ancient princess (Sofia Boutel­la) was mum­mi­fied and entombed deep under­ground. When she awak­ens in the con­tem­po­rary world she acts on a mil­len­nia-old grudge against human­i­ty. There to dis­cov­er her sar­coph­a­gus and even­tu­al­ly run briskly away from her con­jured sand­storms is Nick, played by Tom Cruise. Writ­ten by Christo­pher McQuar­rie and Jon Spai­hts, and direct­ed by Alex Kurtz­man, The Mum­my will also be the first instal­ment in the Uni­ver­sal Mon­sters shared uni­verse. The pow­er that these mon­sters’ hold mean they are always worth see­ing new ver­sions of, par­tic­u­lar­ly when behind the make­up and CG is an actress as charis­mat­ic such as Sofia Boutel­la has recent­ly shown her­self to be. JG

Released 23 June

With four films already under its belt, two of which sur­passed $1bn at the box office, the Trans­form­ers series shows no sign of slow­ing down. The fifth entry does mark the end of an era, though, with Michael Bay set to take the helm for the final time. It seems like a safe bet that his last robo out­ing will be packed with big emo­tions and big­ger explo­sions, and the premise –which sees human­i­ty and the Trans­form­ers locked in a war for sur­vival – is an intrigu­ing one. Mark Wahlberg stars, with Antho­ny Hop­kins, Stan­ley Tuc­ci and John Tur­tur­ro in sup­port­ing roles. JW

Released 4 July

Giv­en its bot­tom-tier stand­ing in Pixar’s estimable back cat­a­logue, Cars seems an odd choice to receive a three­quel. Still, we’re con­fi­dent that the fran­chise will get back on track after its shaky sec­ond instal­ment. The lat­est addi­tion fol­lows Light­ning McQueen’s (Owen Wil­son) reluc­tant retire­ment from rac­ing after a dra­mat­ic crash. Over­tak­en by a new gen­er­a­tion of high-tech vehi­cles, he must work twice as hard to make a come­back and secure anoth­er podi­um fin­ish. The visu­als look to be typ­i­cal­ly excel­lent, and fans of the first film will appre­ci­ate the return to the race course after the second’s spy sto­ry. JW

Released 7 July

Tom Holland’s I’m‑just-happy-to-be-here atti­tude added a com­ic touch to Cap­tain Amer­i­ca: Civ­il War​’s best, most breath­less sequence – the action-packed land­ing strip spar. Now Spidey is set to swing back into action with his sixth solo film (and third incar­na­tion) in 15 years. The trail­er promis­es a play­ful affair befit­ting of the fresh-faced, light-heart­ed Peter Park­er famil­iar to fans of the comics. Tony Stark/​Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) returns as his begrudg­ing men­tor, as does Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), whose role as car­ing, con­cerned guardian will hope­ful­ly be a lit­tle more sub­stan­tial this time around. We’re also keen to see how Michael Keaton fares as antag­o­nist Bird­man – sor­ry, Vul­ture. JW

Released 14 July

As far as reboots go, the pre­quel series that began with Rise of the Plan­et of the Apes is one of the least work­able and pre­dictable ideas to come out of Hol­ly­wood. To everyone’s sur­prise both Rise and its 2014 sequel, Dawn of the Plan­et of the Apes, were great darn great. Liv­ing up to mod­ern action expec­ta­tions while stay­ing in line with the ethics of the orig­i­nal films, this new series has also been a place of pio­neer­ing motion cap­tured CGI. It also holds the unique posi­tion of being one of the few cur­rent action fran­chis­es that abhors rather than delights in the vio­lence of its set pieces. The year’s entry choos­es not to opt for anoth­er syn­onym for ​‘Rise’, as direc­tor Matt Reeves tests Caesar’s strained paci­fism even fur­ther. JG

Released 21 July

Most cov­er­age of Christo­pher Nolan’s lat­est film has focused on its cast, which fea­tures a host of British act­ing heavy­weights – Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Ken­neth Branagh – along­side new­com­er Fionn White­head and One Direction’s Har­ry Styles. There’s plen­ty to look for­ward to beyond the famous faces, though, from Hoyte van Hoytema’s cin­e­matog­ra­phy to the high like­li­hood of seat-grip­ping sus­pense. The action cen­tres on the Dunkirk evac­u­a­tion dur­ing World War Two, as wit­nessed from three per­spec­tives: air, land and sea. Nolan has revealed that dia­logue and expo­si­tion will be min­i­mal – rather than unrav­el­ling the strand­ed sol­diers’ pre-war back­sto­ries, the focus is on who sur­vives, and how. JW

Released 28 July

Based on Stephen King’s sup­pos­ed­ly unfilmable ​‘The Dark Tow­er’ book series, Niko­laj Arcel’s sci-fi/hor­ror/west­ern will sup­pos­ed­ly be a qua­si-sequel to the end­ing of the books rather than a typ­i­cal adap­ta­tion. The plot fol­lows an 11-year-old boy who is caught up in an adven­ture with Idris Ebla’s lone gun­man, whose quest to reach the Dark Tow­er is in hopes of sav­ing his world. Along the way, they will face threats from a vil­lain­ous sor­cer­er (Matthew McConaugh­ey). The vast changes from the orig­i­nal sto­ry means that this film will be as much of a mys­tery to fans of the book as new­com­ers, mak­ing this one of the most intrigu­ing films of the year. JG

Released 4 August

Despite their influ­ence with­in sci-fi cir­cles – they are wide­ly con­sid­ered to have inspired ele­ments of Star Wars – the Valéri­an comics remain lit­tle-known. First pub­lished in 1967, the series has had to wait 50 years to reach the big screen. Though the teas­er trail­er keeps plot details to a min­i­mum, we know that the film will trail two space-and-time-trav­el­ling agents, Valéri­an (Dane DeHaan) and Lau­re­line (Cara Delev­ingne), as they arrive at the mul­ti­cul­tur­al megac­i­ty of Alpha. Besson pre­vi­ous­ly worked with the comics’ artist Jean-Claude Méz­ières on The Fifth Ele­ment, a block­buster that polarised crit­ics but is gen­er­al­ly held up as one of the filmmaker’s best works. We’re curi­ous to see whether Valéri­an and the City of a Thou­sand Plan­ets will fol­low suit. JW

Released 29 September

Kings­man: The Secret Ser­vice had a bois­ter­ous rev­er­ence for the spy films of the ​’60s, shov­ing the sub-genre into the 21^st cen­tu­ry with a rebel­lious dis­re­spect. Its vul­gar take­down of Bond and his ilk was scat­tered with moments of bril­liance, in par­tic­u­lar an expert­ly-chore­o­graphed ultra-vio­lent fight set in a West­boro-like church that was as deliri­ous­ly exhil­a­rat­ing as it was per­verse­ly exces­sive. Direc­tor Matthew Vaughn’s anar­chic style is an unpre­dictable yet wel­come pres­ence in The Gold­en Cir­cle, which sets its satir­i­cal vision on the US as Eggsy and co are intro­duced to their Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts: The States­men. The Amer­i­can side of the cast include Halle Berry, Chan­ning Tatum and Jeff Bridges, with Julianne Moore report­ed­ly upping the ante as their shared vil­lain. If it’s any­thing as wild and brazen as its pre­de­ces­sor, we’re in for a thrilling expe­ri­ence. JG