The winter holidays are behind us, spring will soon be in the air, and some of the highly anticipated movies and TV shows of 2024 are on their way. If you were busy romancing your sweetheart in February and missed some of the big trailers, here are the highlights released last month.
Welcome Home, Franklin
The latest special about Charles Schulz’s Peanuts crew follows sweet and friendly Franklin. The trailer introduces Franklin, a military kid who has moved often and finds that making friends can be pretty hard. That is until he meets Charlie Brown, and they enter the soapbox derby. The boys bond while building and testing their car, listening to music, and learning about friendship. It is now available on Apple TV+.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
The trailer opens with the return of Walter Peck (William Atherton) who – surprise, surprise – wants to shut down the new Ghostbusters (Paul Rudd, Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, and Carrie Coon). After receiving a mysterious sphere, Ray (Dan Aykroyd) informs the team of a parable about a power that can command a ghost army. This leads into footage from the first trailer in which New York City is overwhelmed by frozen temperatures and ice that literally shoots out of the street. That’s when Ray and the other original Ghostbusters (Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson) join the new ones, including Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) suiting up as a Ghostbuster for the first time. The trailer gives equal time to the original and new Ghostbusters, and features callbacks to the original films, including an appearance by Slimer. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire arrives in theaters on March 22, 2024.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Godzilla and King Kong have faced some very tough odds – namely each other – but now they will need to join forces to stop a formidable enemy. In the next entry into the MonsterVerse, Ilene Andrews has discovered a signal, which Kong has also sensed. A team of humans and Kong travel to the world deep within the Earth where they find an army of giant apes who appear to be readying for war. Despite their aversion to each other, Godzilla and Kong (sporting a robotic arm) work together to stop the impending threat. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire reaches theaters on March 29, 2024.
Star Trek: Discovery
The crew of Star Trek: Discovery are embarking on one more adventure in search of a powerful object in the official trailer for the fifth and final season. “The fifth and final season will find Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the crew of the USS Discovery uncovering a mystery that will send them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries,” the official synopsis reads. “But there are others on the hunt as well… dangerous foes who are desperate to claim the prize for themselves and will stop at nothing to get it.” The fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery will start streaming on Paramount+ on April 4, 2024.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
The new trailer for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes teases how the world has changed with apes ruling and humans on the run. The fourth movie in the Apes reboot series is set several years after Caesar’s reign. A young ape starts to question what he’s been told about the world’s history and considers making choices that would change the future for both apes and humans. In the trailer, young Noa is unsettled by the behavior of the ape leader and his quest to conquer and gain more power. Witnessing how the humans are being hunted, Noa befriends a young woman in the hope of building a better future. The movie arrives in theaters on May 10, 2024.
Deadpool & Wolverine
The Merc with the Mouth is back and this time he’s teaming up with a surly mutant. The trailer starts on Wade Wilson’s (Ryan Reynolds) birthday, where his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) and friends like Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and Dopinder (Karan Soni) have gathered in celebration. That’s when the TVA shows up to recruit him to become the next great hero. Naturally he starts breaking the fourth wall with jokes about Disney and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though he is now a title character, Wolverine is barely shown in the trailer, appearing only from behind or in shadow. However, he is in his yellow and black suit. There’s also a blink and you’ll miss it shot of Pyro (Aaron Stanford), who hasn’t been seen in Marvel movies since X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006. Deadpool & Wolverine will premiere in theaters on July 26, 2024.
