Sometimes it seems like every movie is either a sequel or a reboot. They remade Robocop and Godzilla. They're releasing sequels to the reboots of Spider-Man and Planet of the Apes. But there are still tons of original films in the pipeline. Here are over 50 forthcoming movies that aren't sequels, remakes or prequels.


Note: There's no way we could possibly include every movie that fits into this category here. Please suggest other upcoming films that aren't franchise pictures in the comments!

Top image: Jupiter Ascending

Big-Budget to Medium-Budget Films


Transcendence

Logline: Don't upload Johnny Depp to the cloud, or you'll unleash an A.I. apocalypse on the world, as he becomes an artificial superbeing. Seriously, don't! This film is the directorial debut of Christopher Nolan's cinematographer, Wally Pfister.

Status: Coming April 18


Rover

Logline: Guy Pearce and Rob Pattinson star in this near-future Western, set after the collapse of civilization, where a man is chasing the gang that stole his last remaining possessions.


Status: Coming June 2014


Earth to Echo

Logline: A "found footage" version of E.T., in which a group of kids track down a weird alien named Echo, and help him escape from the authorities and maybe find his way home.


Status: Coming July 2


Jupiter Ascending

Logline: The Wachowskis are gambling big-time on this weird fantasy in which Channing Tatum is a wolf-boy protecting a cleaning person (Mila Kunis) from the queen of the universe (Mila Kunis).


Status: Coming July 18


Interstellar

Logline: Christopher Nolan directs a script that his brother Jonathan originally wrote for Spielberg, about a drought-stricken Earth and the desperate journey to another star. It's based on physicist Kip Thorne's theories about wormholes.


Status: Coming Nov. 7


Selfless

Logline: A terminally ill billionaire (Ben Kingsley) gets to transplant his mind into Ryan Reynolds' body — but then he starts having flashbacks of the body's former life, in this thriller directed by Tarsem Singh. Image via Play4Movie.


Status: Coming Feb. 2015


Chappie

Logline: Neill Blomkamp makes a weird comedy about a robot with bunny ears, based loosely on his own short film Tetra Vaal (as pictured above). The film co-stars South African rappers Die Antwoord.


Status: Coming March 2015


Tomorrowland

Logline: Director Brad Bird's long-awaited second live-action movie, with a storyline that somehow involves Disneyland and a mysterious box, written by Damon Lindelof. It stars George Clooney. Image via JustJared.


Status: Coming May 2015

Gods of Egypt

Logline: Alex Proyas directs this fantasy epic set in ancient Egypt, with Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Horus and Gerard Butler as Set. (This! Is! Egypt!?) A human thief joins forces with an Egyptian god who's seeking revenge.


Status: Coming Feb. 2016

Passengers

Logline: Keanu Reeves is a guy whose cryogenic unit malfunctions, waking him early on a long interstellar voyage and dooming him to decades on his own... until he decides to wake up a beautiful woman to share his isolation. This script by Jon Spaihts was on the Blacklist of the best unproduced scripts, and widely acclaimed.


Status: Just lost co-star Rachel McAdams and distribution from the Weinstein Co., but got a new distributor, Focus Features. So it's apparently still happening.


Welcome to Yesterday

Logline: Another "found footage" film, this one about time travel. A group of friends discover that building a time machine and changing the past has dire consequences.


Status: Release date was pushed back from Feb. 2014 to some unknown date, possibly this fall.

Vice

Logline: Bruce Willis stars in this Westworld-esque film about artificial beings who have their memories erased every night, so the wealthy can do whatever cruel and depraved things they want — until one android (Ambyr Childers) remembers, and revolts.


Status: Now filming. It already got worldwide distribution, and companies seemed jazzed about it.

Selling Time

Logline: Will Smith is supposed to star in this film about a man who sells off chunks of his life, so he can relive the worst day of his life and change a tragedy that happened on that day.


Status: D.J. Caruso (I Am Number Four) just signed up to direct. This film has been in development since 2001, but now actually appears to be happening.


The Cobbler

Logline: Adam Sandler and Dustin Hoffman star in this movie about a shoe-repair guy who discovers that when he tries on other people's shoes he can literally "walk in their shoes" and experience what it's like to be other people. But can it possibly be as good as Click?


Status: Already finished filming, but no release date yet.

Book and Graphic Novel Adaptations


Under The Skin

Logline: Scarlett Johansson is an alien who travels around Scotland picking up men and taking them to her secret place, in this weird adaptation of Michael Faber's novel.


Status: Coming April 4


Edge of Tomorrow

What it's about: The movie version of the acclaimed Japanese novel All You Need is Kill, about a soldier fighting aliens who keeps getting brought back from the dead over and over. Starring Tom Cruise.


Status: Coming June 6


Snowpiercer

Logline: Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton co-star in director Bong Joon-Ho's adaptation of the mind-blowing French comic book, about a frozen Earth and the class-stratified train that travels across it.


Status: Coming June 27


The Giver

Logline: Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep headline this film based on Lois Lowry's beloved YA novel about a dystopian society where people's emotions are muted in the quest for "Sameness." And one boy is trained to be the receptacle of all the suppressed memories of the time before Sameness.


Status: Coming August 15


The Maze Runner

Logline: James Dashner's YA novel about boys trapped in a deadly maze — along with one mysterious girl — gets an adaptation, starring Teen Wolf's Dylan O'Brien.


Status: Coming Sept. 19


The Seventh Son

What it's about: An adaptation of Joseph Delaney's The Spook's Apprentice. Also featuring Jeff Bridges in a mentor role, the titular Spook.


Status: Coming February 2015

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Logline: Ransom Riggs' bestselling picture book about a boy who follows clues that lead him to an abandoned orphanage gets an adaptation directed by Tim Burton.


Status: Probably coming July 2015

Queen and Country

Logline: Greg Rucka's fantastic comic about an ass-kicking spy named Tara Chace gets a movie adaptation, starring Ellen Page.


Status: This film just signed up a director, Craig Viveiros.


Sandman

Logline: Neil Gaiman's classic graphic novel about Dream and his siblings, finally appears to be coming to the big screen.


Status: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who probably has the juice to make things happen right now, is producing with the possibility of starring and directing. Jack Thorne (How I Live Now) is writing the screenplay, based on a pitch by David S. Goyer.

The Fire Sermon

Logline: This young-adult novel by Francesca Haig was snapped up as a movie, even though it's not out in the U.S. yet. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where people are always born as twins, one perfect and one mutated — and the mutants are always sent away.


Status: Dreamworks is producing the film, and just signed up Guardians of the Galaxy writer Nicole Perlman to write the script.

The Juliet

Logline: Based on an Alfred Bester short story, this movie is about a playboy and an android who share a single twisted personality — that of a murderer.


Status: Rupert Sanders has been signed up to direct for a while, but the project took on a new lease of life when Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash) was hired to rewrite the script.


Tommysaurus Rex

Logline: In this adaptation of an Image Comics series, Tommy moves in with his grandfather for the summer after his pet dog dies, and has to deal with bullies and mean townspeople — until he finds a tyrannosaurus rex, and they become best friends.


Status: This film has been stuck in development hell for a while, but now Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent) is rewriting the script, with an eye to direct.

Brilliance

Logline: Another project that Will Smith is in talks to star in. In Marcus Sakey's novel, it's a world like ours — except that certain people, known as Brilliants, are born with special abilities. Smith would play a federal agent who has supernatural tracking skills, searching for a "Brilliant" separatist who wants to start a civil war.


Status: Already has a director, Julius Onah, and if Smith signs on it will probably get made.

Cosmic

Logline: In Frank Cottrell Boyce's children's book, a boy sneaks aboard the first civilian flight to outer space.


Status: Cameron Fay is working on an adaptation for Walden Media, which published the book and seems keen to put out a movie version.

The Darkness

Logline: The Top Cow comic follows Jackie Estacado, a Mafia hitman who becomes the the vessel for the Darkness, an ancient elemental force that gives him control over demons. And apparently the scantily clad supernatural character Witchblade will also be in this movie.


Status: Len Wiseman is producing this film for New Regency, but there are no stars and no director yet.

The Red Queen

Logline: This YA novel by Victoria Aveyard was snapped up by Universal as soon as it had a book deal — it takes place in a fantasy world where "society is divided by the color of blood." A 17-year-old girl must pretend to be a long lost princess.


Status: The good news is, Gennifer Hutchison, who won plaudits for her writing on Breaking Bad, is writing the script.


Sleeper

Logline: Ed Brubaker's brilliant noir comic about a world where some people are developing superpowers follows Holden Carver, who can absorb pain and pass it on to others.


Status: It's been in development for ages, but now Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are producing, with Shawn Ryan and David Weiner writing a script.

CyberStorm

Logline: In cybersecurity expert Matthew Mather's self-published e-book, a bizarre series of disasters happen around the world, and an ordinary New Yorker is trapped after the city is cut off from the rest of the planet — becoming a place where nothing is as it seems.


Status: House of Cards writer Bill Kennedy is in talks to write the script.

The Stuff of Legend

Logline: This comics series about toys who travel into the Dark realm to rescue their owner from the Bogeyman has been picked up by Disney.


Status: Pete Candeland has been signed up to direct for ages, but now the writers of Saw are doing a new script.

Animated Films


The Boxtrolls

Logline: The latest movie from Laika, the geniuses who brought you Coraline and ParaNorman. The townspeople of Cheesebridge fear that the trolls under the city will steal their children and their precious cheeses, but the boxtrolls are actually sweet and eccentric.


Status: Coming Sept. 26


Home

Logline: The film adaptation of The True Meaning of Smekday, except with a much more generic title. Gratuity Tucci must survive on her own after her mother is kidnapped by aliens — and then creatures called the Boov invade Earth.


Status: Coming Nov. 26

B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Operations

Logline: Seth Rogen and Melissa McCarthy are ghosts who work for a paranormal agency that protects humans against evil hauntings — but can they save the human race against a whole ghost army?


Status: Coming June 2015

The Good Dinosaur

Logline: At long last, a new original Pixar film. This one is set in an alternate world where dinosaurs never became extinct, and they live among us.


Status: Coming November 2015. It's had some delays, which forced layoffs at Pixar, and the director was taken off the film.

Horror Movies


Oculus

Logline: Doctor Who's Karen Gillan is a young woman who's determined to prove that a cursed mirror killed her parents — but the mirror has plans of its own.


Status: Coming April 11


Only Lovers Left Alive

Logline: Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston are immortal vampire rock stars, in the new Jim Jarmusch movie.


Status: Coming April 11

The Quiet Ones

Logline: Hammer Studios produces an old-school paranormal horror film that looks like it could have come from the classic Hammer era. Jared Harris is a mad professor who leads his students through an experiment designed to create a poltergeist. Bad, bad idea.


Status: Coming April 25.


Deliver Us From Evil

Logline: Eric Bana is a cop who teams up with an exorcist to battle demonic possessions that are terrorizing the city, in this film from Scott Derrickson (Sinister).


Status: Coming July 2

Crimson Peak

Logline: This gothic romance ghost story from director Guillermo del Toro stars Mia Wasikowska as Edith, who discovers that her husband (Tom Hiddleston) is not what he appears to be.


Status: Coming October 2015


Cooties

Logline: Elijah Wood and Rainn Wilson are teachers at an elementary school where some bad hot dogs cause a zombie outbreak among the students, and the teachers have to dole out some tough discipline.


Status: This film got pretty upbeat reviews at Sundance and was acquired by Lionsgate, but no clue about a release date yet.


Life After Beth

Logline: Another Sundance horror sensation, this one stars Aubrey Plaza as a girl who comes back from the dead, to the delight of her boyfriend (Dane De Haan). Except that she comes back... wrong.


Status: Picked up for distribution by A24, but no release date yet.

What We Do In The Shadows

Logline: Yet another Sundance rave, this horror comedy follows a group of vampires who live together in Wellington, New Zealand. It was directed by written by co-stars Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement.


Status: Being distributed by Funny or Die.


A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

Logline: And another Sundance film, this one an Iranian vampire Western produced by Elijah Wood — apparently it's pretty unique and fascinating.


Status: Picked up for U.S. distribution by Kinology.


The Babadook

Logline: This Australian movie about bedtime stories gone wrong rocked Sundance, and we already saw one trailer. Reviews praised its off-kilter humor and director Jennifer Kent's brilliant balance of laughs and scares.


Status: Picked up by IFC Midnight


Afflicted

Logline: This "found footage" horror film won the Fantastic Fest prize and has gotten rave reviews. A man develops strange powers after a one-night stand with a mysterious woman, but apparently there's way more to it than that. We posted the trailer recently.


Status: Coming soon, we hope.

Smaller Indie Projects


The Signal

Logline: Possibly the biggest thing to come out of Sundance this year — watch the trailer for yourself. This film follows two hackers from MIT who go to the desert to meet a rival hacker, Nomad, and it goes very badly for them.


Status: Coming June 13


Young Ones

Logline: Jake Paltrow's directorial debut is a weird Western set in a post-apocalyptic world, which got muted reviews at Sundance.


Status: No distribution or release date yet.


I Origins

Logline: Another Earth director Mike Cahill wowed Sundance with this story of a biologist who studies the human eye and makes a discovery that could have profound implications for our place in the universe.


Status: It's been picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight.


Space Station 76

Logline: A retro-futuristic comedy set on a 1970s-looking space station, starring Patrick Wilson as an alcoholic captain and Liv Tyler as his new second in command.


Status: It wowed SXSW last month. No clue on a release date yet.


Bad Johnson

Logline: We just posted the first trailer for this movie in which Cam Gigandet is a womanizer who wishes his penis away... and it leaves his body and takes human form. Not surprisingly, the penis-turned-human is kind of a dick.


Status: Supposedly coming May 2014.


The Machine

Logline: A British movie about two programmers who fall in love as they develop the first artificial intelligence — but then the British government steals their creation and tries to turn it into a weapon.


Status: Just came out in the U.K., and it's getting rave reviews that compare it to Blade Runner.


Zero Theorem

Logline: Terry Gilliam directs a film written by Pat Rushin, about a man (Christoph Waltz) who is working on discovering the reason for existence — but the Management keeps distracting him. Gilliam has described this as sort of a "greatest hits" of his past movies.


Status: It's gotten mixed but energetic reviews at festivals, and there's no clue about a U.S. release date.


How to Catch a Monster

Logline: Matt Smith, the Eleventh Doctor, stars in this "fantasy neo-noir" movie directed by Ryan Gosling, in which a single mother (Christina Hendricks) gets swept up in a dark underworld. Image by Splash News via Pop Sugar.


Status: It filmed ages ago, but there's no clue about a release date.

Air

Logline: Norman Reedus and Djimon Hounsou are janitorial workers in the cryogenic facility where the survivors of humanity are frozen after a nuclear disaster renders the planet uninhabitable.


Status: It's being produced by Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, and directed by Christian Cantamessa (who also co-wrote the script with Chris Pasetto).


Senn

Logline: Senn is a depressed factory worker on a forgotten planet named Pyom, when an alien comes to see him and escorts him and his love across the universe to an ancient artifact that has chosen him for something special.


Status: This film won fairly positive reviews at the Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival, and the first teaser trailer is right here.

A different version of this article appeared in June 2012.