HISTORY REPEATING

Can summer 2023 channel the halcyon days of 1989’s blockbuster season? The return of Keaton’s Caped Crusader brings us hope.

AT THE RISK OF DATING MYSELF, the first time I became aware that “summer movie season” was a thing was the fabled summer of 1989. It had never really occurred to me before that point that I saw more movies in the summer than at any other time of year, if for no other reason than by kid logic standards, the simplest explanation was also the correct one: no school meant more time to beat the heat in the air-conditioned splendor of the local multiplex. And while I was a dorky, precocious little pain-in-theass (some might say I haven’t changed all that much), I wasn’t looking at box-office numbers or paying any particular attention to critics.

But even I could tell that something different was happening in the summer of 1989. First and foremost,

I had never seen anything like the marketing machine for Tim Burton’s Batman, which felt like it had kicked off a full six months ahead of its June release. My friends (there weren’t many) and I were awash in Batman t-shirts, caps, trading cards, candy, action figures, towels, and more, long before that June 23 opening day, a date that had been circled on our calendars and treated with the kind of reverence that adults seemed to reserve for impenetrable celebrations like “anniversaries” or tedious obligations like weddings. Never mind the fact that when June 23 rolled around, I was grounded for some infraction or another, and the most effective way my parents could think of to show me the error of my ways was to deny me an opening night screening of the film that had become, to the disapproving eyes of teachers and other assorted authority figures, an obsession. They weren’t wrong.

And yet Batman was only one piece of a summer that also brought massive franchise heavy hitters such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters II, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Licence to Kill, The Karate Kid Part III, and even perfectly–engineered-fora-sixth-grader’s-brain weirdness like “Weird Al” Yankovic’s UHF

Sure, that last one doesn’t really fit the “heavy hitters” theme, but it was a hell of a summer for movies, is what I’m saying.

And it looks like we’re in for another one of those. Michael Keaton is back as Batman. Harrison Ford dusts off Indy’s fedora. The Transformers, Mission: Impossible, and Fast & Furious franchises are dropping their seventh, seventh, and tenth installments, respectively. There’s a sequel to a bona fide modern animated classic with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and what looks like a joyous return to the big screen for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There’s even the unlikely Barbie and Oppenheimer box office horse race, which is somehow the subject of intense debate and scrutiny.

We’re devoting a big chunk of this issue to a summer movie preview to help you navigate the wildest blockbuster schedule in recent memory. But mostly, we just want you to take a break from the heat, hit up your local theater, and lose yourself in adventure with a crowd of friends or strangers, just like you used to.

Mike Cecchini, Editor-in-Chief

BY EXPERTS. FOR FANS.

On The Cover

The sun’s come out (a bit) and with it a new sense of hope for a bright and bold blockbuster season. We wanted our cover to reflect that, so we’ve opted for warm, bright colors and hand-drawn fonts by our own Chloe Lewis. On the cover you can spot Michael Keaton’s Batman who will be showing his cowl in The Flash, Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, as well as the stars of Barbie, Spider-Man: Across the

Spider-Verse, and more. Also don’t miss our features on Diablo 4, ’90s cartoons, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and Eric Andre. There’s a lot to get excited about. We hope you enjoy the issue!

COVER PHOTO CREDIT: HANDLETTING BY CHLOE LEWIS IMAGE CREDITS: DISNEY, WARNER BROS., PARAMOUNT PICTURES, PARAMOUNT+, SONY PICTURES, BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT, UNIVERSAL PICTURES

ISSUE 10 | SUMMER 2023