2023 Summer Movie Preview

What summer movies are you most looking forward to?

On this episode of The Hollywood Outsider podcast, 2023 has finally arrived at the greatest point of every cinephile’s annual indulgence, the Summer movie season!! This year theaters are hopping again with blockbusters like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part One, Fast X, and The Little Mermaid, and also insightful smaller films like What’s Love Got To Do With It, Hypnotic, and Talk To Me.  But with so many films coming out at this time, how is any self-respecting fan supposed to know what to see when there are so many options available? We’re here to help with our 2023 Summer Movie Preview!

We discuss each month in detail; every major release, as well as our picks of the smaller independent titles. May, June, July, and August all receive their fair due as we elaborate and debate on over 40 titles coming to theaters, as well as those independent and streaming gems to look for. Before finally revealing the Listener Top 5 Most Anticipated Films of Summer 2023.

Grab a pen and paper or your favorite app, because this is one episode you will want to take notes on. THIS is our 2023 Summer Movie Preview!

Discussed on this episode

• (0:00 – 1:31:41) Summer Movie Preview 2023
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2023 Summer Movie Schedule

May 5
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
In Marvel Studios “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” our beloved band of misfits are on a mission that, if not completed successfully, could quite possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them.

What’s Love Got To Do With It?
How do you find lasting love in today’s world? For documentary filmmaker Zoe (Lily James), swiping right to find Mr Right has only delivered bad dates and funny anecdotes, much to her opinionated mother Cath’s (Emma Thompson) dismay. For her childhood friend and neighbor Kazim (Shazad Latif), the answer is to follow his parents’ example and opt for an assisted marriage with a bright and beautiful bride from Pakistan. As Zoe films his hopeful journey from London to Lahore to marry a stranger, chosen by his parents, she begins to wonder if she might have something to learn from a different approach to finding love.

May 12

Book Club: The Next Chapter
The four best friends take their book club to Italy for the fun girls trip they never had. When things go off the rails and secrets are revealed, their relaxing vacation turns into a once-in-a-lifetime cross-country adventure.

Hypnotic
A detective becomes entangled in a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program while investigating a string of reality-bending crimes.

BlackBerry
Two mismatched entrepreneurs – egghead innovator Mike Lazaridis and cut-throat businessman Jim Balsillie – joined forces in an endeavor that was to become a worldwide hit in little more than a decade.

Disney + Crater
The story of Caleb Channing (Russell-Bailey), who was raised on a lunar mining colony and is about to be permanently relocated to an idyllic faraway planet following the death of his father (Mescudi). But before leaving, to fulfill his dad’s last wish, he and his three best friends, Dylan (Barratt), Borney (Hong) and Marcus (Boyce), and a new arrival from Earth, Addison (Grace), hijack a rover for one final adventure on a journey to explore a mysterious crater.

Apple TV+ STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie
The film, which will incorporate documentary, archival and scripted elements, recounts Michael J. Fox’s extraordinary story in his own words.

Netflix – The Mother
A deadly female assassin comes out of hiding to protect the daughter that she gave up years before, while on the run from dangerous men.

May 19
Fast X
A terrifying threat emerging from the shadows of the past who’s fueled by blood revenge, and who is determined to shatter this family and destroy everything—and everyone—that Dom loves, forever.

Hulu – White Men Can’t Jump
White Men Can’t Jump is a modern remix of the iconic 1992 film that celebrates the streetball hustling culture of Los Angeles.

NETFLIX – (May 16th) – Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me
An unflinching and humanizing examination of the life, death and secrets of Vickie Lynn Hogan – better known as model and actress Anna Nicole Smith. From her first appearance in Playboy in 1992, Anna Nicole’s dizzying ascent was the very essence of the American dream, brought to a tragic halt with her untimely passing in 2007

May 26

The Little Mermaid
The youngest of King Triton’s daughters, and the most defiant, Ariel longs to find out more about the world beyond the sea, and while visiting the surface, falls for the dashing Prince Eric. While mermaids are forbidden to interact with humans, Ariel must follow her heart. She makes a deal with the evil sea witch, Ursula, which gives her a chance to experience life on land, but ultimately places her life – and her father’s crown – in jeopardy.

The Machine
Set 23 years after the original story which inspired it, The Machine finds Bert Kreischer facing familial crisis and the arrival of his estranged father (Mark Hamill) when the ghost of his booze-soaked past arrives: a murderous mobster (Iva Babić) hellbent on kidnapping Bert back to the motherland to atone for his crimes.

Kandahar
Tom Harris, an undercover CIA operative working in the Middle East, is in danger when his classified mission is exposed. Together with his translator, they must find a way out of hostile territory to an extraction point in Kandahar, Afghanistan

June 2

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must redefine what it means to be a hero so he can save the people he loves most.

The Boogeyman
A man tries to explain to his psychiatrist that the Boogeyman, a creature lurking in a closet, is real and has been killing his children.

June 9

Strays
When Reggie (Will Ferrell), a naïve, relentlessly optimistic Border Terrier, is abandoned on the mean city streets by his lowlife owner, Doug (Will Forte; The Last Man on Earth, Nebraska), Reggie is certain that his beloved owner would never leave him on purpose. But once Reggie falls in with a fast-talking, foul-mouthed Boston Terrier named Bug (Oscar® winner Jamie Foxx), a stray who loves his freedom and believes that owners are for suckers, Reggie finally realizes he was in a toxic relationship and begins to see Doug for the heartless sleazeball that he is

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Returning to the action and spectacle that first captured moviegoers around the world 14 years ago with the original Transformers, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will take audiences on a ‘90s globetrotting adventure and introduce the Maximals, Predacons, and Terrorcons to the existing battle on earth between Autobots and Decepticons.

Disney+ Flamin’ Hot
The immigrant to riches story of how Flamin’ Hot Cheetos came to life. His initial idea sparks a billion-dollar brand and catapults him from janitor to elite corporate executive.

The Angry Black Girl & Her Monster
Vicaria (Laya DeLeon Hayes) is a brilliant teen who believes death is a disease that can be cured. After the brutal and sudden murder of her brother, she embarks on a dangerous journey to bring him back to life.

June 16

Elemental
Follows an unlikely pair, Ember and Wade, in a city where fire, water, land and air residents live together.

The Blackening
Seven black friends go away for the weekend only to find themselves trapped in a cabin with a killer who has a vendetta. Will their street smarts and knowledge of horror movies help them stay alive?

The Flash
Worlds collide in “The Flash” when Barry uses his superpowers to travel back in time in order to change the events of the past.

Netflix – Extraction 2
After barely surviving the events of the first movie, Rake is back as the Australian black ops mercenary, tasked with another deadly mission: rescuing the battered family of a ruthless Georgian gangster from the prison where they are being held.

June 23

Asteroid City
Asteroid City is a poetic meditation on the meaning of life. It tells the story of a fictional American desert town circa 1955 and its Junior Stargazer convention, which brings together students and parents from across the country for scholarly competition, rest/recreation, comedy, drama, romance, and more.

No Hard Feelings
On the brink of losing her childhood home, Maddie (Lawrence) discovers an intriguing job listing: wealthy helicopter parents looking for someone to “date” their introverted 19-year-old son, Percy, before he leaves for college. To her surprise, Maddie soon discovers the awkward Percy is no sure thing.

Netflix – The Perfect Find
Will a forty-year-old woman with everything on the line — her high-stakes career, ticking biological clock, bank account — risk it all for an intensely lusty secret romance with the one person who could destroy her comeback, for good? Gabrielle Union

June 30

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Famed archaeologist and explorer Indiana Jones returns in a fifth movie.

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
Sweet, awkward 16-year-old Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor) is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High, but she mostly just feels invisible. But when she breaks her mom’s #1 rule, Ruby will discover that she is a direct descendant of the warrior Kraken queens and is destined to inherit the throne from her commanding grandmother (Jane Fonda), the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas.

Harold and the Purple Crayon
Harold, a bald young boy with a love of drawing, fears that the birth of a new baby brother will ruin his life. With his magic purple crayon, he retreats into a fantasy world in which a monster abducts his baby brother. When real-life complications occur during the pregnancy, it’s up to Harold to right his wrongs.

July 7

Insidious: The Red Door
In Insidious: The Red Door, the horror franchise’s original cast returns for the final chapter of the Lambert family’s terrifying saga. To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and a college-aged Dalton (Ty Simpkins) must go deeper into The Further than ever before, facing their family’s dark past and a host of new and more horrifying terrors that lurk behind the red door.

Joy Ride
Four friends embark on a no-holds-barred, epic experience that becomes a journey of bonding, friendship, belonging, and wild debauchery that reveals the universal truth of what it means to know and love who you are.

July 14

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Ethan Hunt returns in an all new seventh installment.

July 21

Barbie
A Barbie doll living in Barbieland is expelled from the world for not being perfect enough, too eccentric and not fitting the usual mold. She goes on an adventure in the real world and by the time she returns to Barbieland to save it, she has gained the realization that perfection comes on the inside, not the outside, and that the key to happiness is belief in oneself.

Oppenheimer
Story of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb.

Netflix – They Cloned Tyrone
A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio (Boyega, Foxx and Parris) onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy in this pulpy mystery caper.

July 28
Netflix – July 27 Happiness For Beginners
Helen (Ellie Kemper) has always lived her life as far from the edge as possible. Finding herself newly divorced and a little lost, Helen decides she needs a reset and signs up for the “Adventure of a Lifetime!” The adventure is a backcountry survival course hiking the Appalachian Trail with a group of oddball strangers.

Haunted Mansion
A family moves into the name-sake mansion. Lakeith Stanfield plays a widower who once believed in the supernatural but is now a rather lifeless tour guide in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Tiffany Haddish plays a psychic hired to commune with the dead.

Talk to Me
When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill, until one of them goes too far and unleashes terrifying supernatural forces.

Aug 4

Meg 2: The Trench
A sequel to the 2018 giant shark movie, The Meg.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
After years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers through heroic acts.

August 11

Gran Turismo
Based on a true story, the film is the ultimate wish fulfillment tale of a teenage Gran Turismo player whose gaming skills won a series of Nissan competitions to become an actual professional race car driver.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Based on a single chilling chapter from Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, The Last Voyage of the Demeter tells the terrifying story of the merchant ship Demeter, which was chartered to carry special private cargo—fifty unmarked wooden crates—from Carpathia to London.

Netflix – Heart of Stone
Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot) is an intelligence operative, the only woman who stands between her powerful, global, peace-keeping organization and the loss of its most valuable — and dangerous — asset.

August 18

Blue Beetle
Recent college grad Jaime Reyes returns home full of aspirations for his future, only to find that home is not quite as he left it. As he searches to find his purpose in the world, fate intervenes when Jaime unexpectedly finds himself in possession of an ancient relic of alien biotechnology: the Scarab.

The Hill
Inspiring true story of Rickey Hill, the small-town son of a traveling Pastor (Dennis Quaid). A sandlot baseball phenom, Rickey defiantly overcomes his physical disabilities and father’s persistent worry for his health, to fulfill his dream of playing professional baseball and ultimately transforming his connection with his father.

Please Don’t Destroy
The story of three childhood friends who live and work together. The trio decides they don’t like where their lives are headed and set off to find gold treasure rumored to be buried in the nearby mountain

August 25

White Bird
In White Bird, we follow Julian (Bryce Gheisar), who has struggled to belong ever since he was expelled from his former school for his treatment of Auggie Pullman. To transform his life, Julian’s grandmother (Helen Mirren) finally reveals to Julian her own story of courage — during her youth in Nazi-occupied France, a boy shelters her from mortal danger. They find first love in a stunning, magical world of their own creation, while the boy’s mother (Gillian Anderson) risks everything to keep her safe

Lift
An international heist crew is recruited to prevent a terrorist attack, and must pull off the heist on a plane mid-flight – Kevin Hart and Vincent D’Onofrio

September 1

The Equalizer 3
Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) has struggled to reconcile the horrific things he’s done in the past and finds a strange solace in serving justice on behalf of the oppressed. Finding himself surprisingly at home in Southern Italy, he discovers his new friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall knows what he has to do: become his friends’ protector by taking on the mafia. Man on Fire’s Dakota Fanning is also along for the ride.

*Descriptions courtesy of MovieInsider.com