2017 was an outstanding year for movies, so 2018 definitely has its work cut out for it when it comes to heading to the theater. Thankfully, there seems to be no shortage of promising movies slated for this year, and we’ve picked out the fifty that look the best. That’s not to say other movies won’t come along and look even better (who’s to say what will come out of a festival or make a surprising splash on the calendar), but judging by the landscape of what we know is currently set for release this year, 2018 looks like it could be just as good as 2017.

Check out our list of our most anticipated movies of 2018 and sound off in the comments about the movies you’re excited to see this year.

Mary and The Witch's Flower

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Image via Studio Ponoc

Release Date: January 19th

Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi

Writers: Mary Stewart (Novel), Riko Sakaguchi & Hirmasa Yonebayashi (Screenplay), David & Lynda Freedman (English adaptation)

Cast: Hana Sugisaki, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Yuki Amami, Ruby Barnhill, Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Kate Winslet, Jim Broadbent

I’m pretty jealous of my colleague Haleigh Foutch who had a chance to check out Mary and The Witch’s Flower last year. Luckily, the theatrical release for Studio Ponoc’s inaugural picture is just around the corner. If you’ve seen the marketing material for the animated film, you might think it’s another Studio Ghibli joint. You wouldn’t be far off; Studio Ponoc was formed in 2015 with a number of former Ghibli animators and they’ve clearly carried over some influence from their work.

Mary and The Witch’s Flower is an adaptation of Mary Stewart’s 1971 children’s story “The Little Broomstick” which follows the title character’s adventures in a world of magic and mystery. It’s that fun fantasy aspect I’m looking forward to seeing here. There’s a curious cat (check), a flying broomstick (check), a magic-granting flower (check) and a college of magic (check) in which conflict arises. I can’t wait to see how Mary sorts it all out. – Dave Trumbore

Bilal: A New Breed of Hero

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Image via Gulf Films

Release Date: February 2nd

Directors: Khurram H. Alavi, Ayman Jamal

Writers: Ayman Jamal, Alexander Kronemer, Michael Wolfe, Khurram H. Alavi, Yassin Kamel

Cast: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ian McShane, China Anne McClain, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Michael Gross, Cynthia Kaye McWilliams, Jacob Latimore, Fred Tatasciore

Since I’m the animation lead here at Collider, pretty much any interesting and unique animation project that comes across my vision captures my attention. Bilal: A New Breed of Hero is one such project. It technically opened back in 2015 in the United Arab Emirates for the Dubai Film Festival before playing at Annecy 2016, but its U.S. debut arrives in February.

Bilal tells the story of its title character, a hero from the ancient days of the Arabian Peninsula inspired by the real life of Bilal ibn Rabah. The tale is a classic one: Bilal, who dreams of being a warrior from his earliest days, is orphaned and sold into slavery, only to secure his freedom and attempt to do the same for his kin. It looks gorgeous. Rigorously researched by Jamal, Bilal is the product of his 2013 studio Barajoun Entertainment and is seven years in the making. Hopefully Bilal is just the beginning of a long and fruitful filmography. – Dave Trumbore

The 15:17 to Paris

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Image via Warner Bros.

Release Date: February 9th

Director: Clint Eastwood

Writer: Dorothy Blyskal

Cast: Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone, Jaleel White, Jenna Fischer, Judy Greer, Lillian Solange Beaudoin, Thomas Lennon, Tony Hale, and P.J. Byrne

This could go south quick. Movies like Act of Valor have attempted to convey the world of American soldiers by using real-life servicemen and professionals in the roles before, and the result was a grotesque blend of propaganda and dull domestic drama. The danger of this can be palpably felt in the trailers for The 15:17 to Paris, in which Clint Eastwood recreates the 2015 Thalys train attack using three of the real-life men instrumental in dismantling the terrorist operation. Eastwood rightly gets a lot of grief for his politics, which are largely baseless, but he’s a perceptive and daring filmmaker in many respects. For all the fudging of Chris Kyle’s character in American Sniper, few war films have been as blunt and bleak about the psychological toll of being a gifted, decorated soldier whose friends and closest colleagues are constantly being killed. The 15:17 to Paris doesn’t have the star power that American Sniper had but it similarly has the potential to analyze and criticize the price of American heroism while also proudly depicting the base thrills of that same brand of bravery. - Chris Cabin

Black Panther

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Image via Marvel Studios

Release Date: February 16th

Director: Ryan Coogler

Writers: Ryan Coogler, Joe Robert Cole

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Andy Serkis, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown, John Kani

I mean, obviously. Marvel Studios absolutely knocks it out of the park with their comic book adaptations; even the weakest of the bunch is thoroughly entertaining. Black Panther looks to be anything but weak. From a social standpoint, this is the perfect time for a live-action adaptation of a very progressive and powerful African superhero and the incredibly advanced nation of Wakanda, though you’d be right to argue that Black Panther has been a long time coming. However, I can’t imagine doing any better than this incredible international cast featuring Black leads at the absolute top of their game.

Black Panther shifts the focus to Marvel’s title character after introducing him (and his mythology) in Captain America: Civil War. This is an awesome opportunity to explore the technology, history, culture, and politics of Wakanda while fully fleshing out the title superhero-king and giving lesser-known characters a chance to shine. Black Panther isn’t just one highly anticipated movie of 2018, it’s a contender for my most-anticipated movie overall. – Dave Trumbore

Early Man

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Image via Lionsgate

Release Date: February 16th

Director: Nick Park

Writers: Mark Burton, James Higginson, John O’Farrell, Nick Park

Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Miriam Margolyes, Richard Ayoade, Timothy Spall, Mark Williams

If you’re a fan of Aardman Animation, this one’s already on your radar. It’s been a few years since their last outing, Shaun the Sheep (which has a sequel ready to go next year) and 18 years since their highest-grossing film, Chicken Run. But the stop-motion animated aesthetic of Aardman is alive and well, as evidenced by Early Man.

At first blush, this feature looks like a prehistoric comedy that centers on a conflict between the humans of the Stone Age and the more advanced members of the Bronze Age. But more recent trailers have revealed that it’s actually a sports comedy, so while the conflict will be the same, it’ll be funneled through a football (a.k.a. soccer) lens. That’s interesting to say the least, but I’m more curious to see how international and American audiences react to it, and how the international popularity of the three leads lends exposure to the latest Aardman adventure. – Dave Trumbore

Annihilation

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Image via Paramount Pictures and Skydance

Release Date: February 23rd

Director/Writer: Alex Garland

Cast: Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Oscar Isaac, Benedict Wong

After penning the scripts to a number of the best sci-fi movies of the 21st Century, including 28 Days Later, Sunshine, and Never Let Me Go, Alex Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina and delivered an original chamber piece that topped them all. For his sophomore film, Garland expands his scope drastically with an adaptation of the genre-bending novel Annihilation. As written by New Weird literary figure Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation is a bizarre, slippery piece of horror via sci-fi nightmarescapes that follows a team of female scientists into a mysterious realm known as Area X, where inexplicable biological wonders and terrors await. It's clear that Garland has taken some liberties with the source material from the trailers, including some worrying details about the motivations of the lead character, but after the bracing, thoughtful sci-fi mastery on display in Ex Machina, and eyeing the incredible cast the director put together, I'm keeping the faith Garland's going to pull this one off. The fact that international distributors apparently thought the film was "too complicated" with a challenging female lead only makes me more excited. -- Haleigh Foutch

A Wrinkle in Time

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Image via Disney

Release Date: March 9th

Director: Ava DuVernay

Writer: Jennifer Lee

Cast: Storm Reid, Chris Pine, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Peña, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Levi Miller, Rowan Blanchard, and Andre Holland.

Filmmaker Ava DuVernay made waves with her rousing MLK film Selma, and in its wake she fielded offers for a variety of big budget projects. But she sparked to an adaptation of Madelilne L’Engle’s beloved book A Wrinkle in Time at Disney as an opportunity to tell a massive, fantastical, and hopeful story with a non-white actress in the lead role. The result is a bright, visually stunning film with an encouraging message, scripted by the co-director and co-writer of Disney’s Frozen. And given DuVernay’s talents behind the camera on her previous films, I can’t wait to see what she does with a $100 million budget. – Adam Chitwood

Tomb Raider

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Image via Warner Bros.

Release Date: March 16th

Director: Roar Uthaug

Writers: Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Alastair Siddons

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Hannah John-Kamen, Walton Goggins, Dominic West, Kristin Scott Thomas, Nick Frost, Daniel Wu, Emily Carey

I’ll admit, I was skeptical about this reboot from the beginning; I’m now slightly less skeptical thanks to the first trailer and transformative featurette for the film. Much like the 2013 video game reboot changed the look and lore of Lara Croft from its rather polygonal booby beginnings, I’m hoping the live-action movie reboot will move in the same direction, giving Vikander something more to work with than was afforded to Angelina Jolie back in 2001 and 2003. Make no mistake, Tomb Raider has strong franchise potential if Uthaug, Vikander, and the creative force at work knock it out of the park with this first installment. Indiana Jones seems to have hit a snag, so I’m honestly hoping Tomb Raider can take its contemporary place and forge a new path. – Dave Trumbore

Love, Simon

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Release Date: March 16th

Director: Greg Berlanti

Writers: Elizabeth Berger & Isaac Aptaker

Cast: Nick Robinson, Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel, Alexandra Shipp, and Colton Hanyes

This one wasn’t really on my radar until I saw the trailer, but now I’m eager to see this coming-of-age story that’s also a coming out story. The film follows Simon Spier (Robinson), a high-schooler who’s coming to grips with his homosexuality. Rather than douse the story in tragedy and negative consequences, which is what this kind of movie would have been as recently as a decade ago, Love, Simon looks funny and charming. That’s not to say there isn’t weight to Simon’s struggles, but rather it’s one that’s made relatable and human rather than distant and exclusive. – Matt Goldberg

Mary Magdalene

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Image via Film4

Release Date: March 16th

Director: Garth Davis

Writers: Helen Edmundson and Philippa Goslett

Cast: Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix, and Chiwetel Ejiofor

Lion filmmaker Garth Davis returns with a highly curious follow-up, Mary Magdalene, that’s sure to pique folks’ interest. Rooney Mara plays the Biblical figure while Joaquin Phoenix plays Jesus and Chiwetel Ejiofor is Peter, but this isn’t a mere simple retelling of the Gospel story. Instead, the film aims to shine a light on the figure of Mary Magdalene as a woman, and how her place among Jesus’ flock was questioned simply because of her gender. Indeed, many of the writings about Magdalene at the time were skewed from a male point of view, so it’ll be interesting to see what conclusions Davis’ film comes to about the nature of Mary Magdalene, who many believe was essentially a 13th apostle. – Adam Chitwood

Isle of Dogs

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Image via Fox Searchlight

Release Date: March 23rd

Writer/Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Greta Gerwig, Jeff Goldblum, Frances McDormand, Courtney B. Vance, Mari Natsuki, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Ken Watanabe, and many more.

Every Wes Anderson film is cause for celebration, but Isle of Dogs marks the filmmaker’s return to stop-motion animation after his masterful 2009 animation debut Fantastic Mr. Fox. This time around Anderson crafts a story set in a dystopian future Japan where dogs have been quarantined on a remote island due to “canine flu.” A young boy ventures to the island alone to find his very good boy, Spots (voiced by Liev Schrieber). Hilarity, delight, and gorgeous framing ensue. – Adam Chitwood

Unsane

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Image via Relativity

Release Date: March 23rd

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Writer: Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer

Cast: Claire Foy, Juno Temple, Aimee Mullins, Amy Irving, Jay Pharoah, Joshua Leonard, Colin Woodell, and Sarah Stiles,

It’s the new Steven Soderbergh. Do you need another reason? You do? Does the fact that Soderbergh’s cast is led by the Queen herself, Claire Foy, as a young woman who gets locked up in a mental institution against her will sweeten the pot at all? It should, as should the inclusion of wildly inventive performers ranging from Juno Temple and Amy Irving to Joshua Leonard and Jay Pharoah. There’s also an element of morbid curiosity, as Soderbergh will be working from a script by James Greer and Jonathan Bernstein, known best for the Jackie Chan vehicle The Spy Next Door and the Lindsay Lohan romcom Just My Luck. This is not exactly the team you would pick to handle such sensitive material and there’s always the chance that this could end what has been one of the most impressive good-movie streaks in modern American filmmaking. Either way, Soderbergh has yet to make a bad movie that isn’t at least fascinating, and if 2017’s Logan Lucky is any indication, Soderbergh still has the fire and wit to render any script into a genuinely rousing cinematic experience. – Chris Cabin

Ready Player One

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Image via Warner Bros.

Release Date: March 30th

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writers: Zak Penn and Ernie Cline

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg, and T.J. Miller

Every new Steven Spielberg movie is an event, but Ready Player One is especially exciting for a number of reasons. Based on the book of the same name, the future-set story takes place half in the real world and half inside a Virtual Reality world called the OASIS, where our hero Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) is searching for an Easter Egg that would give him control over the entire apparatus. The world is chock-full of 80s nostalgia and pop culture, so it’ll be interesting to see how/if Spielberg references so many of the iconic films he had a hand in making. This puts the filmmaker firmly back in blockbuster territory for the first time since 2011’s The Adventures of Tintin, and it’ll be exciting to see what he brings to the table. – Adam Chitwood

You Were Never Really There

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Image via Amazon Studios

Release Date: April 6th

Director/Writer: Lynne Ramsay

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Alessandro Nivola, Ekaterina Samsonov, Alex Manette, Judith Roberts, and John Doman

Early reports had Lynne Ramsay’s hugely anticipated follow-up to her divisive We Need to Talk About Kevin arriving before the end of 2017, after garnering Joaquin Phoenix top honors at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival for his lead performance. It’s now hitting theaters this Spring, meaning that it has moved from being the movie I’m most impatient to see in 2017 to 2018, even against tough competition from Isle of Dogs, Where’d You Go Bernadette?, and David Gordon Green’s Halloween remake. The story follows the haunting memories and furious, life-threatening actions of a mercenary (Phoenix) who is tasked with rescuing and protecting a young girl. As far as narrative goes, it’s about as simple as you can get but Ramsay has a way of making the seemingly uncomplicated into a knotty hallucinatory vision of fear, desperation, and isolation, as she did in both Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar. Any movie featuring Phoenix in the lead is worth giving your time towards but with Ramsay in his corner, You Were Never Really There radiates with potential greatness. – Chris Cabin

The New Mutants

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Release Date: April 13th

*Unfortunately, Fox has delayed this release until February 22, 2019.

Director: Josh Boone

Writers: Josh Boone and Chris Claremont

Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Maisie Williams, Henry Zaga, Alice Braga, Blo Hunt

We've seen a lot of incarnations of the superhero genre over the last couple decades, but we haven't had a superhero horror movie yet. Thankfully, Deadpool blew up the rulebook and as a result, Fox has doubled down on getting weird with their comic book adaptations. Last year, that got us Logan, one of the best superhero movies ever made, so hopes are high for Fox's next venture, The New Mutants, which promises to bring a YA horror bent to the superhero genre. With Josh Boone, Fox seems to have found the ideal guy for the job -- a director who has YA credentials from the success of The Fault in Our Stars and horror credentials from his well-documented passion for Stephen King, and with a thrilling young cast that includes Game of Thrones' Maise Williams, Stranger Things' Charlie Heaton, and reigning horror queen Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Split) the pieces are lined up for New Mutants to be a unique, crowd-pleasing entry in the X-Men verse. -- Haleigh Foutch

Rampage

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Image via Warner Bros.

Release Date: April 20th

Director: Brad Peyton

Writers: Ryan Engle, Carlton Cuse, Ryan Condal, Adam Sztykiel

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jake Lacy, Malin Akerman, Joe Manganiello, Naomie Harris, Breanne Hill

Here’s a movie that should just be all-out fun. It stars “Franchise Viagra” Dwayne Johnson, who had a big part to play in making Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle as fun as it was, alongside three massive, city-destroying monsters. It reunites Johnson with his San Andreas and Journey 2 director Peyton, so you can expect a sort of synthesis of those two franchises in this video game adaptation. In other words, cities are going to be crushed in entertaining fashion.

“Video game adaptation” are some ugly words in this business. I’m hoping Rampage doesn’t try too hard to reverse this curse but rather focuses on having as much fun with the premise as possible. The early marketing material reveals a strong bond between Johnson’s character, a primatologist, and the highly intelligent gorilla, George. While Rampage needs this emotional attachment to give the audience something to hang onto, there’s a tough line to walk between saccharine and earnest sentiment. This will be the first big-screen adventure for The Rock in 2018, so I’m expecting a big turnout opening weekend. – Dave Trumbore

Avengers: Infinity War

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Image via Marvel Studios

Release Date: May 4th

Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo

Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Tom Holland, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olsen, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Paul Bettany, Benedict Cumberbatch, Benicio Del Toro, Linda Cardellini, Josh Brolin, Jon Favreau, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, Chadwick Boseman, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Mackie, Benedict Wong, Don Cheadle

Again, obviously. This is what the MCU has been building to since 2007’s Iron Man, more so than The Avengers in 2012 and, especially, 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. The cast of Marvel characters—heroes and villains alike—has greatly expanded over the last few years, including the Guardians of the Galaxy, a host of new Avengers, refugees from Asgard, and the entire nation of Wakanda. That’s a lot of folks with a lot of stories, which means two things: One is that the scale of Infinity War is going to be epic, like space opera epic, allowing Thanos plenty of room to roam. The second is that some of our heroes (and their real-world counterparts) will almost certainly be ending their run with the MCU, only to have new heroes step up. Avengers: Infinity War may very well be the end of the MCU as we know it and the beginning of not just the multi-franchise’s next phase, but its face for the next decade or so. These are the on-screen and behind-the-scenes reasons for why Avengers: Infinity War is vying with Black Panther for my most-anticipated film of the year. You just can’t overstate how important this transitional film will be to the future of superhero cinema. – Dave Trumbore

Where’d You Go Bernadette?

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Image via Black-Bernstein Productions

Release Date: May 11th

Director: Richard Linklater

Writers: Richard Linklater, Holly Gent Palmo, Vincent Palmo Jr., Michael H. Weber, and Scott Neustadter

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Kristen Wiig, Judy Greer, Billy Crudup, Troian Bellisario, Laurence Fishburne, Johannes Haukur Johannesson, James Urbaniak, Claudia Doumit, and Kate Easton

Richard Linklater has had this adaptation of Maria Semple’s best-selling novel, centered on a teenaged daughter’s search for her missing mother, on his plate since early 2015, following his strong showing on the awards circuit for Boyhood. If the cast is any indication, Oscars may very well come-a-courtin’ for this one too, considering the fact that it will see Linklater teaming up with Cate Blanchett for the first time to date. Blanchett will portray the titular matriarch while Billy Crudup will co-star as her husband and Kristen Wiig will play a concerned neighbor; Laurence Fishburne appears in an undisclosed role, following his excellent work with Linklater in Last Flag Flying. It’s a great cast that would bring in an audience regardless of the material but the pull here is Linklater. From the outset, the story seems to be setting the stage for a thriller, but the book is more of a comical journey, rife with dark detours and fittingly complex insights into strained familial relationships. It’s the kind of story that gives Linklater room to play with his own obsessions as well as those on the page, which is where his best movies tend to come from. – Chris Cabin

Untitled LAIKA Movie

Release Date: May 18th

Director: TBA

Writer: TBA

Cast: TBA

While I can’t say much about LAIKA’s next film—since nothing has been released or confirmed, and they’re not telling me anything just yet—I can tell you the stop-motion animation studio’s pedigree should speak for itself. Each of their four feature films have been nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar, with the most recent addition Kubo and the Two Strings also banking a nomination for Best Visual Effects. The studio’s technology improves by leaps and bounds between each feature allowing the creative teams more freedom of expression and a greater ability to animate exactly what they see in their minds’ eye. For my money, LAIKA’s films are the best stop-motion animated features going right now, hands down, and it’s because the top-tier animation is paired with incredible storytelling.

Kubo and the Two Strings was a great example of this; there are times when you completely forget that you’re watching a feature that’s a series of still images painstakingly shot over months and months. Part of that is because the animation is fluid and flawless with some jaw-dropping environmental and character effects; the other part is that LAIKA’s storytelling ability is some of the best out there. So while I have no clue whether their next feature will be an adaptation or an original work, what’s certain is that it will be emotional, immersive, visually stunning and awards-worthy. – Dave Trumbore

Solo: A Star Wars Story

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Release Date: May 25th

Directors: Phil Lord & Chris Miller and Ron Howard

Writers: Lawrence Kasdan and Jon Kasdan

Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Paul Bettany

Well this one would have been on our list regardless, but the curiosity factor is now through the roof as directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller left the project at the tail end of filming, and Ron Howard stepped in to oversee the completion of principal photography and some/a lot of reshoots. There are many questions that remain (Who will be credited as director? How much was reshot?), but the foundation is still a curious prospect: an origin story for one of the most iconic characters in movie history. Lucasfilm weathered stormy productions of Rogue One and The Force Awakens before, so can they get out of this one unscathed as well? We’ll find out in a few months’ time. – Adam Chitwood