M3GAN
 January 6

 If you think the multiplex will be a complete wasteland in January, you clearly do not know about M3GAN yet. Universal Pictures and producers Jason Blum and James Wan are starting 2023 off right with this wickedly campy horror film, defying conventional expectations that the month would be the studios' dump.

The Pale Blue Eye,
January 6
 which premieres on Netflix this week, is technically a 2022 film because it was shown at a few movie theaters over Christmas. However, The Pale Blue Eye will actually reach its intended audience. The Pale Blue Eye is a curious hybrid of historical fantasy, horror, and detective fiction, all of which Edgar Allan Poe helped create or pioneer. It takes place in 1829, during Poe's brief and unsuccessful time as a West Point cadet. According to the new movie, Poe also became involved in a real-life murder investigation during those turbulent days.

The film
 based on Louis Bayard's novel, is a passion project for writer-director Scott Cooper (Hostiles, Antlers). It also brings him back together with his frequent collaborator Christian Bale, who plays a typical Poeian detective who travels to upstate New York to investigate a homicide and finds himself in conflict with a sadistic Southern officer named Edgar (Harry Melling, who plays Edgar in The Queen's Gambit).


The psychological horror film Knock at the Cabin,
February 3
 based on Paul Tremblay's acclaimed 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, returns on February 3 with Dave Bautista in the lead role. Ben Aldridge, who plays Jonathan Groff in Mindhunter, and Pennyworth's Ben Aldridge play a couple who are vacationing in the woods with their adopted daughter when they are visited by a mysterious quartet of strangers who warn them about an impending apocalypse. Nikki Amuka-Bird (Old) and Rupert Grint (Servant), two of Shyamalan's previous collaborators, complete the cast. Dave Bautista, whom Shyamalan cast after being impressed by his "powerful [and] still" performance in Blade Runner 2049, also makes an appearance.

In Magic Mike's Last Dance,
February 10

 Channing Tatum returns to the strip club for... One, which could be considered the conclusion of the most unlikely of mythic trilogies. Last. Dance.


You can tell that the third and final Magic Mike movie has you interested, especially since Steven Soderbergh returns to the director's chair after only executive producing Magic Mike XXL. In the third installment, Mike, like his real-life alter ego, has a chance at genuine international fame and stardom when he becomes the muse of a pop star of a certain age, Salma Hayek, who is trying to make a comeback. Take out the popcorn.

In Ant-Man and the Wasp,
February 17

 Jonathan Majors portrays Kang the Conqueror: The Wasp and the Ant-Man: Quantumania Quantumania opens on February 17 and marks the beginning of Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the third appearance of Marvel's tiniest superhero duo. As a member of the epic team that defeated Thanos in Avengers: In Endgame, Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly reprise their roles as Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne, size-shifters, in a brand-new adventure that sheds light on the MCU's next big bad: Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), a terrifying figure.

In Quantumania, Scott and Hope are joined by Cassie,

 Scott's now-teenaged daughter (played by Kathryn Newton), Hank Pym (played by Michael Douglas) and Janet van Dyne (played by Michelle Pfeiffer), the original Ant-Man and the Wasp, as they accidentally venture deeper than ever into the Quantum Realm, the strange subatomic universe that was only briefly explored in the first two films. They meet Kang there, who offers to help the heroes escape the tiny world to "give them more time"—presumably to prepare for his inevitable invasion of Earth. MCU boss Kevin Feige has said that this movie will plot a "direct line" to Phase Six's Avengers: The Kang Empire).