The Biggest Movies With Something To Prove In 2018

2018 is a big year for movies, with its slate including blockbusters like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Infinity War. Movies like these, however, aren't just a means to a box office end—they've each got something to prove. Some of this year's films seek to defeat stigmas against their respective genres, others are serving as proving grounds for new directors, and a few more are wholly unique endeavors. Read on to find out the challenges facing this year's most anticipated movies.

2004's The Incredibles, one of Pixar's most beloved movies, has seen a whopping 14-year hiatus between installments. A lot can happen in 14 years. Your audience gets older, fans get more critical, and expectations rise—and not just because of 14 years' worth of anticipation. And that's not even considering how exhausted by superhero films a lot of people are. 

The Incredibles originally released in a pre-MCU age, before studios like Marvel, Fox, and Warner Bros. were pumping out more annual superhero films than could be counted on one hand. While the first film leaned more heavily on Mr. Incredible's personal journey, family dynamics, and James Bond plot devices, upending a genre that hadn't yet cemented itself in cinema, The Incredibles 2 has a lot more to live up to and will have to really work that Pixar charm in a now over-saturated market. In sum, Brad Bird and Pixar are going to have to knock this one out of the park if they hope to prove the Incredibles are truly worthy of their name.

Solo: A Star Wars Story has racked up a bit of a reputation for being the problem child among Lucasfilm's current in-development projects. The first signs of trouble arose when Kathleen Kennedy flexed her executive muscles and fired directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord well into Solo's development. This massive production shakeup struck fear into fans, causing some to wonder if Kennedy was playing it too safe by firing directors over their artistic vision. Worse yet, Alden Ehrenreich, the actor portraying Han Solo, was saddled with an acting coach on-set in order to ensure his performance was up to snuff. Couple these problems with the fact that the movie's arriving in four months and Lucasfilm still hasn't publicly released a single second of footage, and it's easy to see why people are getting worried (studio execs included, we bet).

As a result of these problematic developments, Solo's got quite a bit to prove. First, it's got to show it can overcome a troubled production history. Then, it's got to justify its place in the Star Wars lineage, since any story with Solo as a hero could potentially, and retroactively, invalidate his character's starting point as a scoundrel in A New Hope. Lastly, it's got to do both of these things so well that fans don't catch Star Wars fatigue, especially considering The Last Jedi was only just a few months prior and new Star Wars installments are now expected every year.

In short, Solo's got everything to prove and everything to lose, which is probably why he doesn't like to be told the odds.

While it's still a bit too early for anyone to have expectations regarding the movie itself (Warner Bros. hasn't released a trailer as of this writing), one aspect of A Star Is Born that's already set to be under intense scrutiny is the ability of its first-time director Bradley Cooper, who we've seen star in great films like Silver Linings Playbook, American Sniper, and Limitless. The question is, how will he utilize that experience now that he's calling shots on both sides of the camera? 

Cooper's got a lot to prove with this romantic movie musical; first impressions are everything, and this is a chance for him to cement himself as Hollywood's freshest double threat. With the movie experiencing two release-date delays, Cooper's been evading his Day of Judgment for some time now—a fact that will change if Warner Bros. sticks to its guns and releases the movie on October 5 as planned. Here's hoping the final product is a hit and that this film marks the beginning of a fruitful directing career for the Hangover star.

A lot of Sicario's edgiest content worked because of how it was portrayed by renowned director Denis Villeneuve, an auteur with the skill to deliver shocking content with nuance. Can you imagine another director helming a story where Emily Blunt starts as a strong, empowered FBI agent and devolves into a sniveling, battered and bruised little girl? A story in which we're supposed to sympathize with Benicio del Toro, whose character guns down a man's wife and children in the middle of dinner? If plot beats like these aren't handled carefully, public outrage might sink a movie before it's had a chance to swim.

This is why Sicario 2: Soldado has so much to prove. Without Villeneuve, will this movie manage to be as artfully and expertly executed as the previous installment? Will new director Stefano Sollima be able to maintain the same sophisticated approach that made Sicario 2's predecessor such a critical success? Soldado's likely going to tackle a lot of hot-button border issues, and, given the current United States political climate, any poorly implemented decisions by the director will be savaged by critics, the press, and general audiences alike. This movie's diving headfirst into a controversy minefield, and it's going to have to tread very carefully to avoid mishandling its subject matter or, worse, dishonoring its predecessor by playing it safe and not asking the real questions. Either way, Sicario 2 faces some unenviable challenges. 

To say Avengers: Infinity War is one of the most anticipated movies of the past decade might very well be an understatement. Seriously, this movie is tracking to redefine what "anticipated" means. With 18 movies' worth of buildup and ten years of fan grooming in its wake, Infinity War has a name to match the expectations it needs to live up to. Marvel's ultimate high school reunion is going to have to pull out all the stops if it hopes to capitalize on the billions of dollars' worth of box office potential the movie holds. Luckily, it looks like Kevin Feige and the team are up to the task. 

Featuring the writers and directors of the critically adored and box-office-busting Captain America: Civil War, as well as the biggest all-star cast of A-list actors ever assembled, Infinity War is poised to strike lightning for the MCU. The movie will hopefully provide a solid payoff to the decade of hype surrounding it, proving that Feige's unprecedented cinematic universe endeavor wasn't all for naught. If it fails, well, it'll be ten years and billions of dollars' worth of effort capped off by one tremendous disappointment. If it succeeds, it might very well be the biggest event in the history of superhero cinema.

Jurassic World accomplished something special: it resurrected a long-dormant franchise and not only gave it a new lease on life but one worth living. Jurassic World wasn't a sequel that dragged a dead franchise back into the limelight for one more nostalgia-fueled cash-grab, it was a sequel that thrust the series into global prominence, hence why World was both critically welcomed and a box office behemoth. World ushered in a new era for dinosaur movies and reminded us that extinction is only ever temporary in Hollywood, hence why we've already got another sequel coming up this year with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. As cool as the first trailer looked, Fallen Kingdom begs the question: now that Universal's resuscitated the franchise, can they keep it relevant?

Jurassic World made itself timely by toying with 2015 notions of biological engineering, which distracted us all from the fact that the updated narrative's backdrop was simply a retread of the original Jurassic Park (another theme park featuring dinosaurs destined to break free and wreak havoc). That kind of gimmick is only good once, however, and Fallen Kingdom will need something fresh to keep the series momentum going. It's got to prove that World was more than a successful one-off throwback and that the series isn't destined to become a fossil in Hollywood's history. Fallen Kingdom needs to be a successful second act to one of the biggest franchise re-launches of all-time, which is no small feat. Still, we're sure the creators will, uh, find a way.