Brian Truitt

USA TODAY

A new year means a fresh crop of potential sequels, blockbusters and Hollywood heavyweights, though 2017 is bursting with more tentpole films than you can shake a lightsaber at.

It’s not just the summer season, either: The whole year is packed with huge superhero flicks like Logan (March 3) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7), the rebooting of famous franchises such as Kong: Skull Island (March 10) and Blade Runner 2049 (Oct. 6), the return of the kinky world of Fifty Shades Darker (Feb. 10) and the birth of a new series with an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower (July 28). Even Pixar is feeling its mojo, releasing two animated projects: Cars 3 (June 16) and Coco (Nov. 22).

As you plan your cinema trips, here are 10 teasing looks at 2017's biggest must-see films, from the retelling of a Disney classic to the next Star Wars chapter:

'BEAUTY AND THE BEAST' (March 17)

The latest incarnation of the “tale as old as time” pairs Emma Watson as the fair Belle and Dan Stevens as the furry and intimidating yet ultimately lovable Beast, created through a two-step CGI process. First Stevens did his motion-capture work “in a giant muscle suit on stilts in a Lycra onesie,” he says, and would do the facial performance separately. “It’s never been used for a romantic lead before.” As for the acting, he enjoyed the thoughts Watson brought to the project of Belle and the Beast being a yin and yang of different energies, like two halves of a whole. “Getting to play this big, quite silly character at times who’s incredibly misanthropic, but at the same time having this incredibly bright woman opposite me firing these ideas around, fascinated me,” Stevens says. “That story has existed on millions of bookshelves and being part of that bedtime-story moment can be really magical.”

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'THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS' (April 14)

The huge set pieces, insane car chases and constant globetrotting would be reasons enough for most directors to join the Fast and Furious family. What persuaded F. Gary Gray to do the eighth franchise film was instead the chance to have series main man Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) betray and face off against his team. “Dom going dark was just a great twist for this saga,” Gray says. “What (Diesel) has delivered in the way of performance is nothing short of amazing.” The person who turns Dom: Cipher, an evil genius cyberterrorist played by Charlize Theron. “The chemistry between Vin and Charlize is worthy of one of the biggest franchises in history. She’s one of the absolute best antagonists I’ve seen on film,” says Gray, who was also impressed by Diesel’s Furious passion. “At every turn, he would consider what would (the late Paul Walker) think about where it’s going. His dedication to this franchise is almost spiritual.”

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'GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2' (May 5)

Moviegoers enjoyed the comedy and emotion of the first Guardians, and writer/director James Gunn is doubling down on both in the sequel featuring the motley crew of Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper) and kid Groot (voice of Vin Diesel). They became a family in the previous film and now they have to actually be one, Gunn says. “To let somebody love you is a very difficult thing, especially when you’re damaged goods. And all of the Guardians are damaged goods.” New cosmic foes stand in their way, but Quill’s parentage again plays a key role: As much as the first movie focused on his relationship with his mother, Pratt says Vol. 2 focuses on Quill's origin in terms of his space-traveler father (Kurt Russell). “It runs the gamut of emotions for him, wanting to understand why his father wasn’t around to quickly idolizing him and ultimately learning the reality of the relationship and comparing the man who sired him to the man who raised him.”

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'ALIEN: COVENANT' (May 19)

Director Ridley Scott’s latest chapter in the sci-fi franchise is a Prometheus sequel that also acts as a prequel to the 1979 original Alien, with the crew of a spaceship landing on what appears to be a beautiful uncharted world and instead finding dangerous critters. For star Katherine Waterston,Covenant shares one major theme with the first Alien: “You don’t really know what you’re made of until you’re tested,” says the actress, whose Daniels character has similarities with Sigourney Weaver’s iconic Ripley. “They are both able to somehow think clearly in really shocking, unimaginable scenarios. It’s fun to play someone who can thrive in that chaos.” But she doesn’t have a favorite among the Alien Chestbursters and Facehuggers. “I’m very squeamish,” Waterston says, laughing. “I’ve seen these movies many times, but I feel like I’ve barely seen any of the alien scenes because my eyes are usually covered.”

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'PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES' (May 26)

Not only will fans get to see Johnny Depp’s famed Captain Jack Sparrow as an 18-year-old, but the new Pirates is an “enormous” fifth chapter in the swashbuckling series, promises producer Jerry Bruckheimer. “It’s really edgy, still has the humor, but (offers) some real tension.” Everybody’s looking for the Trident of Poseidon, an artifact that will supposedly cure all curses, and the list includes Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), the new captain of the Flying Dutchman who’s trying to free his father from the curse of Davy Jones; young Henry (Brenton Thwaites), who’s searching for his own dad, and astronomer Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario); the decrepit and ghostly Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem), who last encountered Jack when he was a teenager and now wants to kill the infamous buccaneer; and Sparrow himself. Those wondering if Jack will get enough screen time with this big an ensemble need not worry, Bruckheimer says: “He’s still the star of the movie.”

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'WONDER WOMAN' (June 2) / 'JUSTICE LEAGUE' (Nov. 17)

With Superman (Henry Cavill) having laid down his life for Earth, Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) recruit a superteam to take on a new threat to civilization in Justice League. “It was all about the filling-out of this massive comic-book pantheon with the biggest and coolest heroes we could,” director Zack Snyder says of his group, which includes seafaring warrior Aquaman (Jason Momoa), speedy Flash (Ezra Miller) and high-tech Cyborg (Ray Fisher). Fans are getting a big character arc for Wonder Woman in 2017, beginning with her solo movie set during World War I. In it, she finds “humanity isn’t always the most kind and awesome thing,” says Snyder, also a producer on Wonder Woman. “It has its moments, but it can be brutal, and her coming to terms with that dichotomy is what we come to learn about her. And in Justice League, she’s fully evolved into someone who’s embraced mankind, partly through Superman’s sacrifice. She’s like, ‘All right, I’ve got to pick it up.’ ”

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'TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT' (June 23)

Mark Wahlberg and Optimus Prime team up yet again for director Michael Bay’s fifth film featuring battling transforming alien robots. Optimus’ Autobots again face the nefarious Decepticons with the world on the line, this time going back to King Arthur’s days as well as World War II in a story huge in both scope and ambition, Wahlberg says: “It’s really smart and different.” Wahlberg’s character, inventor Cade Yeager, is a man on the run who teams with a British duke (Anthony Hopkins) and becomes embroiled in a massive conflict. And since it’s a Transformers movie, there’s a lot of getting swung around and being “smashed through stuff,” Wahlberg says. “It’s not as cool as it would be had I been 25. At 45, it's all pretty strenuous, but I really like that Michael gives me freedom to make the character my own, improvising and bring a lot of humor and elevate the emotion.”

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'DUNKIRK' (July 21)

Writer/director Christopher Nolan grew up in England well aware of the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation, though he knows the World War II survival story is unfamiliar for a lot of Americans. He considers his movie — which focuses on British, French and other Allied soldiers being trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, France, and driven to the sea with Nazis closing in — “the ultimate race against time.” While his cast includes Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance and even One Direction’s Harry Styles, the film is led by 19-year-old British newcomer Fionn Whitehead as an English private named Tommy. “He’s just a kid, really, and that’s sort of the point. You see events very much through his eyes,” Nolan says. “We want to put the audience on that beach, put them on a boat heading over to Dunkirk, put them in the cockpit of a Spitfire. That’s the ambition and I’m bringing all my experience in filmmaking to bear trying to achieve it.”

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'THOR: RAGNAROK' (Nov. 3)

In his previous two solo Marvel films, Chris Hemsworth’s thunder god Thor has taken on Frost Giants, saved Earth from a dark elf and constantly kept an eye on his trickster half-brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Yet in Ragnarok, director Taika Waititi is really putting the Avenger through his paces — and on a cosmic level, with lots of gods and monsters. “I like it when characters have to deal with their biggest test,” the filmmaker says. The new film finds Thor meeting up with his big green pal the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) on an epic quest to save the Nine Realms. Cate Blanchett debuts as supervillain Hela, “who’s scary and powerful but also fun,” says Waititi, and the movie also introduces warrior woman Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and the enigmatic Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum). “It feels like a classic matchup where you go, ‘Who else can we put in this? Let’s put in the Hulk!’ It’s like kids in the sand pit, throwing everything in.”

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'STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII' (Dec. 15)

Remember that Star Wars: The Force Awakens cliffhanger with new heroine Rey (Daisy Ridley) bringing Jedi master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) his old lightsaber on a remote intergalactic island? Writer/director Rian Johnson is picking up right where they left off in the beginning of the Star Wars saga’s still-untitled next chapter. “I don’t want to skip ahead two years,” Johnson says. “I want to see the very next moment of what happens.” How Rey and Luke relate to each other is the key relationship in Episode VIII, and Johnson says “a large part of the movie” will be spent addressing why Luke’s there and what he’ll do next. Like Luke, Rey has been pulled into a bigger world by connecting with the Force, “but part of what’s she’s dealing with is the realization that she has this power and this gift,” Johnson adds. “She’s taking her first step to coming to terms with this thing inside her that she never knew was there and is just starting to reveal its potential.” Another cliffhanger: How General Leia might figure in the film in light of Carrie Fisher’s death last month.

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