by A lot can change in a year. In January 2022, Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, Elizabeth II our Queen, Jodie Whittaker the Doctor and Will Smith was a good guy.
So it’s entirely possible that 2023 will bring changes that we can’t even imagine yet. But what have the films predicted for the year ahead?
Read more: What will happen in 2022, according to the movies
This is what they told us…
We will learn to adapt to the disappearance of half the world’s population
According to: Avengers: Finale
With Avengers: Infinity War culminating in the 2018 disappearance of half of all life in the universe, the follow-up time to everything but the kitchen sink jumps five years into the future where the world is still mourning for the loss of 50% of its population (Steve Rogers even runs a support group, so why not come down if you want a sympathy hug from Captain America).
Read more: The best movies of 2023
And it is in this 2023 that Ant-Man Scott Lang returns to the real world after five years in the Quantum Realm, visiting the Wall of the Vanished (a monument to the citizens of San Francisco reduced to dust after ‘the snap’), only to discover his own name among the missing. Sure, it’ll be fine, as all those people who dusted off five years ago will eventually come back, even if they’re half a decade away.
An anti-Purge resistance group will fight against the Founding Fathers
According to: The Purge: Anarchy
It’s 2023, and in Purge-land these annual crime festivals have been going on for six years (as opposed to the real world where Blumhouse has been cranking out these movies for — check the calendar — nearly a decade).
But now there is a resistance group, led by Michael K Williams’ Carmelo Johns, which has been fighting for control of government feeds to denounce the New Founding Fathers and end the purges. “NFFA pigs are wrong,” their leader tells America.
“Profit is not the essence of democracy. Wake up, people. Wake up! It’s time to take a stand. Tonight, we write our message in blood… Their blood! (Spoiler alert, they don’t win, as evidenced by the fact that we’ve had three more movies and a TV series since then)
Sentinels will rule the Earth, so be careful if you intend to help mutants
According to: X-Men: Days of Future Past
It’s 2023 and the world, Professor X tells us in his grave opening narrative, is “at war.” The sentinels, gigantic large robots, rule the Earth where mutants and all humans who dare to help them are exterminated. Kitty Pride and a band of mutants, however, are fighting back, using her time travel powers to send Bishop’s consciousness into the past to warn the others of any incoming attacks. Meeting with the Prof, he is told that this dystopia can be traced back 50 years to 1973 and the assassination, by Mystique, of the Bolivar Trask weapon brainbox.
In the wake of Trask’s death, his plans for an all-powerful robot army were accelerated, with the government using the now-imprisoned Mystique’s DNA to create what would become the Sentinels. Then Kitty sends Wolverine’s consciousness back to 1973 Logan so she can stop Mystique and save the future. Naturally, she succeeds, and the film ends in a much less depressing 2023, at the X-Mansion, with no Sentinel or devastated cityscape in sight.
Captured aliens are experimented on to harvest their telepathic abilities
As seen in: Alien Rise (2014)
No, despite being the star headliner who will say yes to anything from Aliens, Alien3, and Alien Vs Predator, Alien Rising has nothing to do with facehuggers.
Instead, Lance Henrickson plays Colonel Cencula, a gruff military thug who experiments on two captured extraterrestrials, with the help of DEA agent turned dance teacher (no, we’re not making this up), Lisa Morgan (Amy Hathaway).
Read more: The best horror movies of 2022
It turns out that Cancula wants to harvest the aliens’ telepathic abilities to control the population of the Earth (boo, etc.) but Morgan – once she finds out what he’s doing – decides to try and stop him. A film so cheap as to make Blake’s 7 look like Avatar, it’s easily the worst film on Henrickson’s CV, which considering he was in Alien Vs Predator, is an achievement.
Plant-based diets take over in the UK
According to: Carnage
Simon Amstell’s darkly funny 2017 mockumentary tells the story of veganism as if it were from the year 2067. In Amstell’s 2023, two years after a deadly swine flu pandemic dramatically changed the way the world’s population viewed consumption of meat, Freddy Jayashankar (played by comedian Mawaan Rizwan) becomes a superstar chef after his vegan recipes catch fire among the public.
“He’s probably the most significant person in this revolution,” says a talking head about the man who helped re-educate the world about giving up meat.
