The film industry is a funny place. One week, there isn’t a single trailer in sight, and the next, three massive upcoming films all decide to drop their first trailers all at once. Like bloody hell, a guy can only watch so many trailers in the span of a day and a half. The first trailers for Hoppers, Mortal Kombat II, and Tron: Ares all dropped over the past couple of days, and to be honest, I’m kinda low-key keen on all of them (yes, that includes Tron: Ares). They each look to have something about them that I think I’ll enjoy. So that’s why we’re here now, for me to tell you why I’m excited for these three upcoming films.

Hoppers

Recent Pixar films haven’t grabbed my attention recently. That’s not to say they’ve been bad, just not for me. So when I heard they were making a new film called Hoppers about people putting their minds inside robotic animals so they can spy on real animals, I wrote it off as another Pixar project I’ll probs skip, even if the premise sounded cool. But then I found out the director, Daniel Chong, created We Bare Bears, and I love We Bare Bears. And then, Disney released the first trailer, and I think it could end up being one of my top ten Pixar films.

While the humans have that same Pixar style they’ve used for their past several films, the animal designs look like 3D versions of We Bare Bears animals. I shit you not, when the deer appeared in the trailer, I got déjà vu ‘cause it looked so similar. And then there’s the comedy, which appears to be right up my alley. Maybe it’s because my sense of humour has devolved into severe brain rot, but how the characters interacted in the trailer, specifically the birds vibing and the bear trying to eat the beaver, had me holding back laughter. If this first trailer is any indication of what the final product will be, I can’t wait for it to be released next year.

Mortal Kombat II

I found the 2021 Mortal Kombat film reboot a decent attempt at adapting the video game series of the same name. Was it cheesy? Did it have faults? Were some parts just plain stupid? Yes to all three, but the film nailed the fights, and at the end of the day, that’s the main reason I’d watch a Mortal Kombat film. It did surprisingly well at the box office, and now we’ve got our first trailer for the sequel, Mortal Kombat II.

Being directed once again by Simon McQuoid, this first trailer shows that the sequel will be leaning into the video game lore a lot more than the first film. The biggest example is the introduction of Johnny Cage, played by the GOAT, Karl Urban. His inclusion, amongst other new characters like Kitana, Jade, Sindel, Shao Kahn, and returning faces like Raiden and Liu Kang, led me to assume that the sequel will incorporate even more elements from the games. We did get a few glimpses of some of the fights, most notably Scorpion vs Noob Saibot, which looks sick as fuck. I am still keeping my expectations in check, because it is a Mortal Kombat film, but this first trailer has me cautiously optimistic for when the film releases on the 24^th of October.

Tron: Ares

When I was 11, my dad took me to see Tron: Legacy, and I thought it was one of the coolest films I had ever seen. I fell in love with the aesthetic, the vibe, the music, just everything about it. So I’ve been severely disappointed that we haven’t had another Tron film in 15 years, but that’ll change this year with Tron: Ares, and we’ve gotten our first full trailer. The trailer showcases almost everything I would want in a follow-up to Tron: Legacy: Lightcycles, fast-paced action, and music that perfectly fits the vibe. There are shots of the new main character, Ares, blasting through both The Grid and the real world on lightcycles, in what appears to be a war inside The Grid, and the real world attempting to weaponise the inhabitants of The Grid. And then there’s the return of Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn alongside the visual style of the OG Tron, it just looks cool as shit.

However, if you were to become a Couch Soup member and check out the discussion about Tron: Ares on Circle (the exclusive social media platform for Couch Soup), you’d find that my opinion is the outlier. Certain individuals *cough* Drew and Iain *cough* are claiming that this first trailer looks horrible and the film will be terrible. And to that I say, what a bunch of buzzkills.

In all seriousness, if the inclusion of Jared Leto is enough to turn you off this film, that’s completely fair (he’s a bit of an odd unit, and I would’ve preferred anyone else). Still, to say the film looks bad, I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement. The trailer oozes the same style that I fell in love with in 2010. And yeah, there will be more real-world elements, but that was hinted at all the way back in Tron: Legacy when Quorra entered the real world. This seems like the logical next step for the series, and I, for one, will be giving it the benefit of the doubt when it releases on the 10^th of October.

Now you’re all caught up on the latest trailers from the world of cinema! These trailers have made me unironically keen for each of these upcoming films, and I’m sure there will be even more exciting trailers and reveals in the second half of 2025.

Have you seen these new trailers? What did you think? Which film are you most excited for? Let us know in the comments where we can talk about our most anticipated films for the rest of 2025.