This week’s Trailer Weekly column talks about a sports biography, an animated comedy and a spine tingling horror flick.
Race is a sports biopic about track and field star Jesse Owens, who won four Gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics against tremendous odds. The Good Dinosaur is an animated comedy that finds a dinosaur befriending a human. Finally, The Forest is a horror film where a woman goes in search of her sister, who disappeared in a Japanese forest despite warnings of an unexplained evil there. All three films have fabulous A-list celebrities in their casts. In addition, two of the films deal with overcoming immense hardship and the power of friendship, respectively. Plus, some of the movie stars in each motion picture are taking on roles outside of their usual movie genres and comfort zones, which could draw their fans in on each’s opening day and bring a positive reaction or heavily disappoint them.
Race is a sports/drama biography about track and field star Jesse Owens and how he won four Gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympic Games despite overwhelming prejudice and doubt at his abilities. It stars Jeremy Irons, Jason Sudeikis, Game of Thrones’ Carice van Houten, Silicon Valley’s Amanda Crew, William Hurt, Grey’s Anatomy’s Giacomo Giannotti and Selma’s Stephan James. The biopic’s trailer depicts Owens’ extraordinary journey of how he trained, competed and won Gold medals in the 100 meter relay, the 200 meter relay, the long jump and the 4 X 100 meter relay at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympic Games despite the harrowing world around him, including the Nazi regime. The film opens in theaters on Friday, February 19, 2016.
The Good Dinosaur is an animated comedy that treks into an alternate world where dinosaurs never became extinct and a dinosaur befriends a cave boy. Produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures, the film includes the voices of Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Steve Zahn, The Hunger Games movie franchise’s Jeffrey Wright, Murder in the First’s A.J. Buckley, Anna Paquin, Sam Elliott and Frances McDormand. The animated flick’s trailer shows how a young dinosaur named Arlo (Ochoa) comes to befriend an infant cave boy, who he names Spot (Bright). Their friendship and bond grows as they learn from each other and protect one another from the dangers of the world around them. It opens in theaters on Wednesday, November 25.
The Forest is a horror movie starring Game of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer, Chicago Fire’s Taylor Kinney, The Night Shift’s Eoin Macken and Strike Back’s Stephanie Vogt. This scarefest’s plot revolves around a woman, who encounters an unknown frightening entity that resides in a Japanese forest beneath Mt. Fuji while searching for her sister. The trailer illustrates how Sara (Dormer) travels to Japan to investigate her sister’s mysterious disappearance in a Japanese forest where people are said to go to commit suicide. Once inside, determined to find her sister, with a guide named Aiden (Kinney), she refuses to heed the warnings of locals about the evils of the forest after dark, but they will soon learn that the warnings aren’t nearly as terrifying as the real thing. It opens in theaters on Friday, January 8, 2016.