It's powerful Titan pitted against Titan in the first trailer for Godzilla vs. Kong , the fourth film released as part of Legendary Picture's " MonsterVerse " franchise, co-produced and distributed by Warner Bros. Directed by Adam Wingard, the film is not meant to be a remake of the 1962 Japanese classic, King Kong vs. Godzilla; rather, per Wingard , it will directly tie into the events of its 2019 predecessor, Godzilla: King of the Monsters , and feature a "more rugged" and aging Kong.

(Some spoilers for some prior films in the MonsterVerse franchise below.)

The MonsterVerse franchise started in 2014 with Godzilla , in which a soldier tries to return to his family while caught in the crossfire of the battle between Godzilla and a pair of parasitic monsters known as MUTOs . The studio followed up three years later with Kong: Skull Isla nd , set in 1973, in which a team of scientists and soldiers travel to the titular Skull Island and encounter Kong, the last survivor of his species. And in 2019, the studio released Godzilla: King of the Monsters , a sequel to the 2014 film, in which Godzilla and Mothra team up to defeat a prehistoric alien named King Ghidorah, who has awakened other ancient creatures (Titans) to destroy the world.

A drone pilot is sent into a deadly militarized zone where he finds himself working for an android officer tasked with averting a doomsday scenario in Outside the Wire , the latest high-profile feature film from Netflix. This one stars Anthony Mackie as the android protagonist, fresh off his stunning performance in the sci-fi indie film Synchronic (included in our roundup last month of the best films released in 2020). That, and Netflix's solid track record with its feature films, are reason enough to be intrigued.

Per the official synopsis:

In 2036, America serves as a peacekeeping force and human troops on both sides are supported by robot combatants called Gumps and drone pilots monitoring skirmishes from thousands of miles away. But after headstrong drone pilot Lieutenant Harp (Damson Idris) disobeys a direct order to intervene in a conflict, the Army deploys him to a military outpost to confront the human costs of his button-pushing.

Harp's expectations of guarding a fence are upended when his new commanding officer Captain Leo (Anthony Mackie) announces plans to infiltrate the demilitarized zone and apprehend Viktor Koval (Pilou Asbæk), a warlord who intends to launch a network of dormant nuclear weapons. Soon, Harp learns that his theoretical experience as a drone pilot means little out on the battlefield under enemy attack—especially after discovering that Leo is an A.I.-enhanced supersoldier whose strength, speed and demand for results promise to turn his real-world education into a trial by fire.

That pretty much sums it up. The trailer opens with Harp showing up for his reassignment, apparently because he has trouble following the rules—or, as Leo (the classified prototype supersoldier) prefers to think of it, an ability to "think outside the box." A bit of a buddy-cop vibe separates the two, with Leo teasing his subordinate about the mushy inscription on the back of Harp's girlfriend's photo ("Awwww... 'my gummi bear....'"). We learn that Leo is capable of human emotion despite his extensive combat training (or, er, programming), and has a neat trick of temporarily removing his tracker when he wants to go off the grid ("Sometimes you got to get dirty to see any real change"). Then the fisticuffs, property damage, and explosions kick in.

Director George Clooney and assembled cast members answered questions via Zoom about the new Netflix feature film, The Midnight Sky . (credit: Netflix)

"I hate being cold more than anything in the world," actor/director George Clooney confesses in a featurette (embedded below) on the making of his new post-apocalyptic science fiction film, The Midnight Sky .  But in order to play a terminally ill astronomer in the Arctic after a cataclysmic event kills most of the people on Earth, Clooney had to endure weeks of shooting in frigid conditions in Iceland. The film is adapted from the critically acclaimed 2016 debut novel, Good Morning, Midnight , by Lily Brooks-Dalton, which has been compared to Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora and Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven .

(Some mild spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

In the novel, a brilliant astronomer named Augustine is posted to the Arctic, scanning the night sky for clues about the birth of the universe. Then a mysterious global apocalypse occurs, prompting all his fellow scientists to evacuate. But Augustine remains behind, dedicated to continuing his research, even as the airwaves go silent. Meanwhile, a team of astronauts aboard the spaceship Aether is set to return to Earth after a mission to Jupiter. On board is Sully, who sacrificed her marriage and left her daughter behind in order to become one of the first humans to travel so far in our Solar System. The astronauts are unaware of the catastrophe that has befallen Earth, and it falls to Augustine to warn them not to return.

A fatally ill man tries to secure the future of his family in a near-future world where the toxicity of the Sun forces people to stay inside during the daytime in LX 2048 , starring James D'Arcy ( Agent Carter, Homeland ). It's a flawed yet thought-provoking surreal science-fiction film, chock-full of big ideas on our relationship to technology and what it means to be human and anchored by D'Arcy's fantastic performance.

(Some spoilers below.)

D'Arcy plays Adam Bird, a married father of three on the brink of divorce from his wife, Reena (Anna Brewster). The year is 2048, and people are largely living indoors during the day because the sunlight is powerful enough to scald human skin instantly. Everyone spends most of their time in a virtual world known as The Realm. (The fact that Reena caught Adam virtually cavorting with his AI lover is just one of their many marital issues.) Everyone also takes regular doses of LithiumX to ward off depression. Adam, however, clings to his old habits, driving a convertible to the office in a hazmat suit and refusing to take the drug.

The Earth is facing an extinction-level event from an interstellar comet as a man and his family race against time to find safe haven in Greenland , a new disaster thriller starring Gerard Butler (300, Angel Has Fallen ) and directed by Ric Roman Waugh ( Snitch, Angel Has Fallen ).

(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

Per the official premise: