Warner Brothers Movies You Won't Want To Miss On HBO Max In 2021

While most of the initial offerings from the DC Extended Universe ran into polarized reactions from critics and audiences, Wonder Woman (2017) fared much better. The Patty Jenkins-directed blockbuster provided a much-needed jolt of optimism into a shared universe that had stumbled down an excessively dour path, and established Princess Diana of Themyscira as the first marquee movie superhero of the modern era with a matching set of X chromosomes. 

The onscreen chemistry between Diana (Gal Gadot) and handsome fighter pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) outsmokes the romantic subplots in basically every other superhero movie by a mile. So, despite his character's circumstances at the end of the first film, maybe it's not such a bad thing that Pine resurrects his role in the sequel. He's joined by a pair of big bads from Diana's ink-and-wood-pulp-based adventures — deranged archeologist Barbara Minerva, a.k.a. Cheetah (Kristen Wiig), and equally deranged inventor and mind controller Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal). 

In one of the trailers, Wonder Woman uses her magic lasso like one of Spider-Man's webs and swings from frickin' lighting bolts. Sustaining that degree of awesomeness for two hours is scientifically impossible, but we're excited to see Jenkins and company give it the ol' college try.

Technically, Wonder Woman 1984 arrived on Christmas Day, 2020. But since, like the other films on this list, it'll be available on HBO Max for 31 days following its release, it'll be streaming for a much larger portion of 2021 than 2020. 

For generations, fans have asked, "If Godzilla fought King Kong, who would win?" And other fans have answered, "Godzilla, obviously. He's much, much bigger than King Kong. Plus, Godzilla easily brushes off the Japanese military in just about every movie he's in, whereas Kong can't even survive a fall off the Empire State Building." 

But now, responding to the second group of fans, Warner Bros. says, "Okay, but what if King Kong was just as big as Godzilla? Now who wins? Not so easy to figure out, is it, Mr. Smarty Pants?!?!"

The handful of movies comprising Legendary Entertainment's MonsterVerse – Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) — culminate in 2021 when the famous metaphor for nuclear war takes on the equally-famous metaphor for colonialism. Adam Wingard of Blair Witch (2016) and V/H/S fame directs, and if GvK successfully melds Wingard's indie horror sensibility with an old school giant creature spectacle, then the MonsterVerse's fictionalized version of human civilization is royally screwed. 

Anybody remember back in 2018 when a Twitter mob took issue with James Gunn's politics, feigned offense at some terrible jokes he made 10 years prior, and got him fired from directing the third Guardians of the Galaxy picture? Well, Warner Bros. subsequently hired Gunn to revamp the Suicide Squad franchise, then Disney hired him back to direct another Guardians anyway. So thanks to the aforementioned swarm of trolls, Gunn has more money and influence than ever. How'd ya like them apples, trolls? 

The utterly bonkers cast of The Suicide Squad reads like a whimsical grab bag of familiar action and comedy faces. Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, and Jai Courtney all return from the first Suicide Squad (2016). The new outfit includes Michael Rooker, Idris Elba, John Cena — who's already got a spinoff show out of this deal — Nathan Fillion, Alice Braga, David Dastmalchian, Peter Capaldi, Pete Davidson, and according to IMDB, Sylvester Stallone and Taika Waititi.

We cannot understate that these Hollywood big shots almost all play C-and-D-list DC villains with names like The Polka-Dot Man, who perpetrate and/or wind up victimized by a degree of violence mandating a hard R from the Motion Picture Association. It's all filtered through the imagination of the guy who made Rocket Raccoon and Groot household names. And this time around, Jared Leto doesn't play a vampire Juggalo other characters call "The Joker" for no apparent reason.  

Sounds pretty rad, right?

Here at Looper, we mostly focus on sci-fi and fantasy movies and television shows, so we only found out who Lin-Manuel Miranda was when Hamilton became a crossover sensation during the second half of the 2010s. But as it turns out, before the actor-composer made the Founding Fathers hip for the first time since the 1700s, he wrote another play called In The Heights. 

From what we can glean from the trailer, it appears vaguely similar to Do The Right Thing except the main character works at a bodega instead of a pizza parlor, and the music is uplifting and orchestral instead of "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy. It also kind of looks how we imagine Rent (2005) was supposed to look before all the stuff that went wrong with the Rent movie went wrong. 

If In The Heights takes Hamilton's sonic sensibilities and applies them to current American struggles rather than the woe of yesteryear's powdered wig-wearing population, then let's hope it redeems the genre of musical theater adaptations after that unpleasant, feline-associated beating it took in 2018.   

In the early '90s, the photo-realistic characters and over-the-top blood 'n guts from the original Mortal Kombat arcade machine opened up whole new possibilities for video games as a storytelling genre. But at the time, in terms of visuals, film remained the superior medium by a mile. Nowadays, the distinction between digitally-created video games and live action movies looks a lot blurrier. There's nothing a film studio's SFX budget can do that a video game can't replicate. So what's the purpose of a Mortal Kombat movie in 2021? Why did someone decide to make this thing? 

Well, the fact that the original MK movie from 1995 remains a rare financial success amongst the notoriously dicey genre of movies based on video games couldn't have hurt. And even if the two mediums have become equals in terms of their aesthetic capacity, video games are still time consuming and a little expensive. Maybe some of us like the idea of following Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Sonya Blade, and all the other murderers without spending weeks button mashing and getting killed repeatedly by our awful roommate Matty before we finally get good enough to finish story mode. A Mortal Kombat game might be hard, but in theory, a Mortal Kombat movie is far less demanding.

During his career, Will Smith has portrayed a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, a man in black, a bunch of different law enforcement agents who play by their own rules, an assassin who fights Batman, and a genie. With King Richard, the once and future fresh prince tackles his most dynamic role yet, as a, uh...(checks notes)...tennis coach?...Huh.

Of course, Venus and Serena Williams — played by Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton in this biopic — are their generation's most significant and widely-recognized tennis champs. But if a story about their father and coach Richard Williams sounds a little less thrilling than many of Smith's previous projects, keep in mind, somebody went to the trouble of suing humanity's most successful rapper-turned-actor in an attempt to hang on to the intellectual property rights. So if multiple people think this story is worth going to court over, odds are they genuinely think it's worth telling.  

Best known for roles including the homicidal vigilante Frank Castle in The Punisher (2017) and unstable former cop Shane Walsh on The Walking Dead (2010), Jon Bernthal co-stars as...(checks notes again) also a tennis coach! Outstanding. 

For some of us, Hugh Jackman's time portraying mutant badass Wolverine tends to overshadow his substantial accomplishments outside of the X-Men umbrella. This is unfortunate, as there's much more to Jackman than stabbing people, cutting people, and having unbreakable metal bones. For instance, his turn as corrupt school superintendent Frank Tassone provides the crux of Bad Education, one of 2019's most underrated films.

Meanwhile, reactions to HBO's Westworld have grown increasingly uneven since roughly the start of the second season. But the occasionally-cerebral action series maintains a high degree of style, even if the substance may be lacking from time to time. A self-contained, 90-minute story could allow Westworld showrunner and Reminiscence director Lisa Joy to dodge some of the pitfalls of long-term serialized television. 

So let's use our imaginations to combine the face of one of this era's most famous superheroes with the minds behind one of its most polarizing sci-fi franchises, and add a story about searching through the memories of a killer who is also maybe your girlfriend. At minimum, it'll be interesting. 

If those aren't enough to get you through a binge-watching weekend, check out the other best movies on HBO Max.