New Movie Poster Round-Up, May 15th: 'Meg 2' Has An Octopus!

The week's new movie posters include 'Meg 2: The Trench,' 'Fast X,' and the center-framed Wes Anderson Twee Explosion.

Welcome to the New Movie Poster Round Up, the feature in which we go through all the week’s new movie posters and read way too much into them. Usually it drops Monday, but sometimes we get a little backed up.

Here’s the latest poster for Fast X (yes, “Fast Ten,” as in “Fast Ten Your Seat Belts”) which seems to feature an exploding car (with a flame plume 30 times its size) flying down the bank of a giant dam. Is the car going to have to… surf the dam water?

I think we all know that it is. Which makes me think… meh. When you’ve already dragged giant safes from the back of cars like a wrecking balls destroying a city, flew a car from one giant skyscraper into another, dodged nuclear submarines exploding through the ice in a franchise, and drive a Pontiac Fiero in space, the action spectacle bar is pretty high (the action spectacle SPOILER?). We’ve come so far from stealing DVDs that we might have to actually go back to stealing DVDs, because honestly what’s left at this point?

Meanwhile, the actual focal point of the poster is Jason Momoa eyeing Vin Diesel skeptically (scornfully?). I know Momoa is supposed to be the villain in the movie, but it’s hard not to instantly think of the famous Vin Diesel-The Rock feud, and wonder if there will be another Vin Beeful brewing on the set of this one. I have to think Jason Momoa got hired in the first place because someone thought “who is the most chill-bro dude in all of Hollywood whom no one could possibly feud with?”

Jason Momoa was the obvious answer, and I can’t fault the logic, but I feel like that same train of thought probably applied to The Rock at one point too and yet here we are. Part of me wants to see if Vin Diesel can be such a pain in the ass that he’d end up beefing with the chillest actor alive, but mostly I just want to see Jason Momoa car surf that dam.

What’s the over/under on Shaka hands in this movie, five?

And here we have… NAMES! LOTS AND LOTS OF NAMES! Aka the poster for Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City.

An American Gothic-style composition with giant yellow text and a mid-century mod vibe name checking every famous actor in Hollywood? Yes, I think you’ve properly captured the essence of a Wes Anderson film. Ooh, and just a dash of child-like whimsy. Chunky toys! People in uniforms! Reading off a bullet-pointed list of jargon in a deadpan manner!

Not sure how Jason Schwartzman managed to get top billing here. Or how Matt Dillon and Scarlet Johansson got left out of the the “last names that end in ON” section. The ways of the poster makers remain mysterious.

I don’t really know much about this movie other than that it’s supposed to be scary. Scary, and it involves a little girl somehow, which is almost redundant (as I’ve said, all horror movies are either about a scary little kid or a haunted house, sometimes both). Meanwhile, the movie is called “The Boogeyman,” which is only ever-so-slightly less vague than “SCARY THING.” Ooh, and from Stephen King!

THIS SUMMER. SCARY THING, starring SCARY GIRL, from the mind of SCARY GUY.

(*whispers to date*) This looks scary.

This poster for Surrounded is giving me “blacksploitation Western” and little else, but I think that’s enough. (As long as it’s not too winky, no more winking in Westerns). Also “Anthony Mandler” is the most Spoonerized-sounding name ever.

Here’s the poster for Reality, about NatSec martyr Reality Winner (it really does not speak well of our country how many whistleblowers to legitimate crimes we’ve thrown in jail or turned into stateless people).

I know this movie is important because of how hard they tried to make Sydney Sweeney less hot. Grubbing up someone insanely attractive is always a dead giveaway, importance-wise. Definitely going to see it. Love a forceful gut punch, probably my favorite kind of gut punch.

David Harbour looks like he’s in the middle of saying “You’re crazy for this one, gamer kid! It’ll never work! This isn’t one of your little video games!”

Meanwhile Orlando Bloom, and sorry to keep harping on this, but he still has big time getting-bonered-on-a-paddleboard energy. Hands on the hips, eyes staring out at the horizon, crotch tastefully obscured by a cloud of smoke… oh yeah, he’s definitely bonering. Bonering super hard. I could spot that face anywhere. Third Legolas.

Side note: is Nordic Track the weirdest possible sponsor to go right in the middle of the protagonist’s face like that?

“When headlines cross borders and strangers become neighbors…” that’s when the bodies hit the floooooooooooor ooh wah-ah ah-ah!

Wait no, that can’t be right.

Ooh, I see what you did there, Ghosts of the Void poster.

(*pointing at negative space*)

(*whispering to date*) “That’s the void.”

I feel like I need a little more from this to spark my interest than a frowning lady in a big scarf. Maybe some ghosts? Just spitballing here.

There aren’t many instances in which I’d advocate not putting Jason Statham in the poster for a movie starring Jason Statham. One exception to the rule? When the movie has a giant octopus eating a helicopter (and a lady? maybe the lady is bait?) like in this poster for Meg 2: The Trench. Or maybe it’s a squid? Holy calamari!

Anyway, Meg 2: The Trench looks good.

It takes some pretty cool artwork to make another multi-verse movie seem like a viable concept, but Across the Spider-Verse seems like it could deliver. The big X sort of looks like it’s trying to cancel Spider-Man’s crotch. Or it’s doing that “Suck it” hand gesture.

Remember the “suck it” hands? My senior year of high school, in the yearbook picture where the entire class stands in the shape of your graduation year, some guy did the “suck it” hands in the only photo and they had to spend a bunch of money trying to airbrush it out of the picture. Sign of the times. These days they could do that in Photoshop in five seconds. Probably an AI could do it automatically. Nowadays kids probably don’t even remember the suck it hands, they’re too busy grittying. Elementary school kids don’t even really walk anymore, they only gritty from place to place. Anyways, I guess I’m saying suck it hands was the gritty of the 90s.

Transfomers: Rise Of The Beasts! Definitely a movie that you’d want to sell through a revolutionary mural-type campaign. We believe in you, Optimus! Viva Señor Prime!

Yes, they’re doing a filmed stage production of Oklahoma! starring Hugh Jackman. It’s wild to me that Hugh Jackman is one of the most musical theater-ass dudes alive and still looks more authentically blue collar than 98% of American actors. Even jolly old England reguarly sends us the offspring of their most haemophiliac aristocrats to play our authentic regular dudes. We need to somehow divorce our acting industry from Nickelodeon sitcoms, or just ban child acting outright.

Also, and I know this is rich coming from a Ronald McDonald wig looking-ass dude like me, but did they have perms in the old west?

Did they give Bumblebee glasses? Is Bumblebee a nerd now??! Hold up, dude even has suspenders! What is this, the Urkel-Bot 6000? Did Iiiii do that, meep morp.

Is the Pablo van a reference to something? I know “Pablo” was Vin Diesel’s pet name for Paul Walker, could this be a Fast X tie-in?? Like maybe Paul Walker was reincarnated as a VW van with a big cannon on top??? God I love that idea. I hope the cannon shoots Coronas.

Oi, it’s me, conts, Da Stafe. Yeh, you lot probly thought oy ‘ad doid along wiv FiwmDronk, but oy is focken aloive an focken wew, now ain’ oy. Da Stafe ‘asn done foive fousand focken push-ups a day only ta meet ‘is demoise at da hands uv some cont in a suit, now ‘as oy? Roighto, so ‘ere oy am in dis big bloody shahk movie, in which moy flash sazz wagon ‘as been transfoamed into flash ocean boike, fru da magic uv movies. Uvvawoise, oy’s stiw basically da same ol’ Stafe: droivin’ round, givin’ bashins and savin birds, an’ occasionally knobbin’ dose same birds (it’s one a da fringe benefits uv savin’ birds, a minge benefit, if yous wiw). Anyway, Oy ‘ope it’s not at aw sad dat oy' is back ‘eah doin da same voice loike it’s stiw two fousan an’ bloody noine again, now is it, Tommy.

Okay, gotta go

Cool art for this poster, all Kandisnky-like, and whatnot (where would I be without all those art classes). Definitely glad to see it applied to a movie about robot aliens who infiltrate Earth society by disguising themselves as eagles and gorillas. Meep morp, don’t mind me, meep morp, just eating some bamboo as we gorilla do, meep morp…

[All Posters via IMPAwards]