Bill Wine's Winter-Spring Movies Preview
By Bill Wine
KYW Newsradio 1060
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The splashy summer movie season, kicking off in early May, always starts beckoning about now, but it's still three months away.
That's a stretch during which moviegoers catch up with the best offerings of 2014 that are still in theaters competing for Oscars while they make do with the winter and spring offerings of 2015.
So here are 25 titles and many more stars featured among the mainstream movies about to open during February, March, and April.
FEBRUARY
Dakota Johnson as literature student Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan as billionaire Christian Grey team up on Valentine's Day weekend to bring the runaway best-seller to the screen in the erotic drama, Fifty Shades of Grey.
Colin Firth stars as a superspy mentor in the comic-book-inspired espionage sendup, Kingsman: The Secret Service.
Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan co-star in a comedy-drama based on the hit musical play about a love affair, The Last Five Years.
The time machine that malfunctioned in the 2010 original is fired up again in the sci-fi comedy sequel, Hot Tub Time Machine 2.
Kevin Costner (top photo) plays a high school track coach who leads his underdog team to a cross-country championship in the inspirational, based-on-real-life sports drama, McFarland, USA.
Will Smith stars as a con artist training The Wolf of Wall Street's Margot Robbie in the tricks of the trade in the grifter dramedy, Focus.
Julianne Moore (below) stars in a dark satirical drama about celebrity and the movie business, Maps to the Stars.
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Medical professionals bring dead patients back to life in the horror thriller, The Lazarus Effect.
Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen co-star in the action-adventure thriller set in 12th-century China, Outcast.
MARCH
Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver team up in a science fiction thriller about an experimental robot in Chappie.
Pierce Brosnan and Owen Wilson co-star in an action thriller about a family caught in a war zone in The Coup.
Vince Vaughn stars as a boss on a business trip in the unexpected-chaos comedy, Unfinished Business.
Richard Gere (below right) joins returnees Maggie Smith, Dev Patel, Bill Nighy, and Judi Dench in the ensemble-comedy sequel, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
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"Downton Abbey"'s Lily James stars in the title role, along with Cate Blanchett as the Wicked Stepmother and Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother, in the live-action folk tale, Cinderella.
Hitman Liam Neeson takes on former boss Ed Harris in the action thriller, Run All Night.
Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and Kate Winslet return in the second installment of the post-apocalypse trilogy, The Divergent Series: Insurgent.
Sean Penn, Idris Elba, and Javier Bardem team up in the armed action thriller, The Gunman.
Kevin Hart teaches incarcerated millionaire Will Ferrell how to survive behind bars in the prison comedy, Get Hard.
Steve Martin provides the lead voice in the animated adventure about an alien race that settles on Earth in Home.
APRIL
Vin Diesel and the late Paul Walker headline the sixth action sequel in the car-crazy franchise, Furious 7.
Helen Mirren stars as a Holocaust survivor and Ryan Reynolds co-stars as her lawyer in the courtroom drama, The Woman in Gold.
Pierce Brosnan stars as King Louis XIV, in a quest for immortality, in the action-adventure fantasy, The Moon and the Sun.
A newborn monkey and his mother try to survive in the ruins and jungles of South Asia in the nature documentary, Monkey Kingdom.
Kevin James brings his title character to Las Vegas in the comedy sequel, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.
And Kevin James and Emily Watson appear in a drama about a seven-year-old yearning for his dad's return in the World War II father-son drama, Little Boy.
