A Vision of What’s to Come
By Tejas Raghuram
Our resident film, television, and video game expert gives his most anticipated for the year 2020.
Movie: Free Guy: 07/03/2020
2019 was a great year for movies, with massive hits like Joker, Parasite, 1917 and more taking the multiplex by storm. It is no surprise then, that 2020 is looking to be just as strong. Last year saw the epic conclusion to the MCU’s 11 year long Infinity Saga with Avengers: Endgame, which was immensely satisfying on all levels.
However, despite the high that the MCU is coming off of, it surprises me to say that the upcoming Black Widow is not my most anticipated movie of 2020. While the trailers for the film look very strong, promising a return to the gritty spy drama tone of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it does not look like anything truly fresh or innovative. While the other MCU entry coming this year, The Eternals, does check those boxes, too little has been revealed about it for me to get excited.
So with that out of the way, my most anticipated movie of the year is Free Guy, directed by Shawn Levy. Starring the always hilarious Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer (who was absolutely brilliant in Killing Eve), Joe Keery (of Stranger Things fame), and Taika Waititi (director and star of Jojo Rabbit), the film is about a bank teller, who realizes he is a background character in a video game, and decides to free himself from the system.
The trailers show the film as The Lego Movie meets The Truman Show, a concept which very much excites me. Add to that a parody of one of my favorite games of all time, Grand Theft Auto V, and you have a recipe for success. It’s like this movie was made specifically for me, and for that reason it is my most anticipated film of 2020.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2m-08cOAbc
TV Show: Wandavision: December 2020
If 2020 looks to be a great year for movies, it is shaping up to be an even stronger one for TV shows. After Game of Thrones went out with a whimper last year, countless shows look to fill that sci-fi/fantasy event show bubble. CBS kicked off the year in spectacular fashion with Star Trek: Picard, and looks to continue Star Trek’s hot streak with the return of Star Trek: Discovery as well as another new series later in the year. Netflix is continuing their streaming dominance with season 2 of their hit show The Witcher, as well as the return of Stranger Things for its fourth season, although there is no word on when exactly that will be released as yet.
Amazon Prime also has a strong slate this year, with shows like The Boys and The Expanse all coming back for new seasons. HBO is bringing new seasons for Westworld, Barry and His Dark Materials, Hulu will have the new seasons for The Handmaid’s Tale and Killing Eve, and Disney + is of course bringing back baby yoda and The Mandalorian back for a season 2.
However, most notably, this year marks the arrival of the MCU to the small screen. While there have been shows “set” in the MCU in the past, like ABC’s Agents of Shield and Netflix’s Daredevil, they have always seemed like their own separate entities. This looks to shift with Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as well as my most anticipated TV show of the year, Wandavision.
Leading directly into Doctor Strange 2: the Multiverse of Madness, the show will focus on Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and how she struggles to get over the death of Vision in Avengers: Infinity War. The show looks like it’s going to be a cerebral journey through Wanda’s struggling mind, as she slowly unravels and descends further into grief and madness.
Shows like last year’s spectacular Watchmen series have shown that cerebral, slower-paced stories can be done, which makes me even more excited for Wandavision. The show also seems to have an incredibly vast scope, teasing properties like the Young Avengers, and for those who have read the House of M comic storyline, the X-men. For all those reasons and more, Wandavision is easily my most anticipated TV show of 2020.
Teaser trailer with WandaVision in it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62EB4JniuTc
Video Game: Cyberpunk 2077: 09/17/2020
While the decisions for most anticipated movie and TV show were actually quite difficult, my decision for the most anticipated video game of the year was a much easier one. Despite 2020 bringing titles like 343 Industries’ Halo: Infinite, which promises a return to form for the once ubiquitous Halo franchise, and Square Enix’s Marvel’s Avengers, the first story driven triple-A Avengers game, the title of my most anticipated game of 2020 goes to Cyberpunk 2077, by a country mile.
Developed over the past 7 years by Polish studio CD Projekt Red (CDPR), the game is set in a dystopian future in the year 2077, and follows a character, named V, as they rise through the ranks criminal underbelly of the gargantuan Night City.
This game is CDPR’s first triple-A release since The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, a game that has received universal acclaim, and is my favorite game of all time. So naturally, Cyberpunk 2077 has some massive shoes to fill. Thankfully, CDPR has proved time and again they can do no wrong, as they have the best track record out of any game studio ever.
CDPR has never included pay-to-win microtransactions in any of their games, and more than anything, their focus is on satisfying the players. CDPR puts effort into their games, and it shows. Take The Witcher 3, for example. The base game has over 100 hours of singleplayer content, which is more than double that of most other triple-A releases. In addition, CDPR released 16 free updates, which added new missions and side-quests to the game.
On top of all that, you then have the two expansion packs for the game, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, which each could have been sold as full games, offering up to 30 hours of gameplay each. For all of these reasons and more, I wholeheartedly believe that Cyberpunk 2077 will exceed my expectations when it releases later this year. Despite the fact that the game has been delayed from its initial release date in April this year, CDPR can take all the time they need, as I know they will deliver an amazing final product.