This Week In Trailers: Enterprising Spin-Offs, Cinematic Thrillers, and Skin-Crawling Homages

As the summer quickly kicks off, one of the most exciting things I look forward to are the plentiful lot of film trailers teasing at what's to come at the year's end. Even while the summer blockbusters continue to drop, the first inklings of the fall and winter seasons in film have already begun to invade the internet. While there's still much to come, and plenty of Oscar bait to wade through, the first week of June has offered just a peek at the biggest releases set to become the heavy-hitters of the coming months. From ambitious spin-off franchises to skin-crawling horror homages, here are the most anticipated trailers of the week. 

Suspiria - While I might be too young to have seen the 1977 horror classic from director Dario Argento, Call Me by Your Name filmmaker Luca Guadagnino has come to revive the skin-crawling aesthetic of Argento's vision with his own take on the story, out November 2. In what could be the best teaser for a horror film I've seen in a while, the latest version of Suspiria pitches us into a cascade of nightmarish hysteria as we follow young dancer Susie (Dakota Johnson) through the mysterious occurrences of a renowned dance academy. With its first scatterbrained teaser flashing everything from plots of murder to another gender-bending role for actress Tilda Swinton, Suspiria's newest becoming will surely ensnare my interest this fall.

Spider-Man: Into the SpiderVerse - After striking an intriguing deal with Disney not too long ago, I've been slowly but surely welcoming Sony Pictures' attempts at crafting their own Spider-Man-centric stories outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With October's Venom promising a somewhat underwhelming origin of Tom Hardy's anti-hero, Sony's other 2018 property in December's Spider-Man: Into the SpiderVerse seeks to put the studio back on the map. With a zany, comic-inspired design, and a focus on Peter Parker's protege in teen Miles Morales, the animated adventure offers plenty to enjoy in its first full trailer.    

Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 - While the originality of 2012's hit feature Wreck-It Ralph might have begun to wane in the near six years since its release, with films like Pixels and even The Lego Movie banking on their nostalgia-heavy and underdog-driven plots for success, the Disney project still managed to garner a sequel. This time sending its massive and bubbly protagonist Ralph (John C. Reilly) into the internet, the sequel, out November 21, seems to be taking a page from last summer's The Emoji Movie, hopefully setting out to deliver a far-more enthusiastic media-based premise. Nevertheless, its first full trailer offers a thorough sense of self-awareness, as Disney itself plays heavily into Ralph's, and the film's, quest to break new ground. 

   

Bumblebee - A project I've been eager to hear more about ever since its somewhat-unprecedented announcement back in 2016, December's Bumblebee has steadily matured as the potential savior for the tanking Transformers franchise. Situating itself far enough from the Michael Bay-directed series of films to promise a character-driven story akin to the live-action franchise's semi-humble beginnings in 2007, the 1980s-set feature from director Travis Knight seems set on turning the wheels in a new direction. With its first trailer teasing a promising lead in Hailee Steinfeld, and a compelling origin for the stark-yellow Autobot at the film's center, Bumblebee could be the spin-off required to cure us of nearly a decade of brutal Bayhem. 

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part - While the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph might be primed to take the Thanksgiving season, the close-out of the winter in February will surely go to the long-awaited follow-up to the 2014 animated hit, The Lego Movie. Pitting its colorful cast of plastic heroes into a dystopian world akin to Mad Max, with central hero Emmet (Chris Pratt) stumbling onto a sudden alien invasion, our first peek at The Lego Movie 2 looks to hopefully deliver just as entertaining a ride as its predecessor once did. With the undeniably charming yet dim-witted charisma of Pratt as one of its main selling points, The Second Part will surely be an early spring hit. 

Widows - Known for his early work with actor Michael Fassbender, who would eventually star alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor in 2013's critically-acclaimed 12 Years A Slave, director Steve McQueen has finally emerged from the shadows, this time with a searing, female-led heist drama up his sleeve. With an intriguing co-writer in Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, and a premise based off the popular British series of the same name, McQueen's latest in Widows packs in a viable cast alongside what could be a promising tale of revenge. While its first trailer might paint a somewhat-normative thriller, situating star Viola Davis as the leader of a group of widows who must finish off a deadly heist that goes terribly wrong, its writer/director duo alone could make the film a worthy November hit. 

Friday's Child - To most cinephiles out there, the work of writer/director Terrence Malick is known for its mostly-obscure, aesthetically-masterful snippets of philosophy and human nature. While some of his films withered, most matured into intriguing portraits of life that almost never followed a cohesive narrative. Drawing off that, we find Friday's Child, from Malick protege A.J. Edwards. While the film seemingly follows a pretty straightforward premise, which finds star Tye Sheridan as a foster care child who quickly gets himself entangled in a botched robbery, the inklings of Malick are on full display in the film's first trailer. While the official release date of the film remains unknown for now, Friday's Child is definitely one of the top indie films on my watchlist. 

The Old Man and the Gun - The final trailer I wanted to discuss found itself in the peculiar crime comedy The Old Man and the Gun, out this September. With Robert Redford stepping into the cunning shoes of a gentleman outlaw in the true story of criminal Forrest Tucker, the latest feature from Fox Searchlight Pictures and A Ghost Story filmmaker David Lowery seeks to venture back to the era of classic 1970s crime dramas. Infusing such an era with a charming comedy and a winning cast, this tale finds its score in Redford's legendary star appeal, still ever-so endearing after years in the business.

While there are plenty of more trailers and teasers set to arrive, as a handful of award-seeking features and box-office titans seek to draw audiences in this fall and winter, these eight trailers offer exciting peeks at some of my latest most-anticipated films of the year's end. With that, what trailers have you most excited for the fall and winter seasons to come? Let me know your favorite trailer of recent in the comments below!