AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
A forgetful fish named Dory turned out to be this summer's big movie star.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FINDING NEMO")
ELLEN DEGENERES: (As Dory) Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.
ALBERT BROOKS: (As Marlin) Dory, no singing.
CORNISH: Dory easily topped superheroes, ghost busters and star trekkers. Summer's important for Hollywood, and the box office total this year will be more than $4 billion. Now the question is how to keep the momentum going into fall. Right now the plan is a mix of blockbusters and awards contenders. Here's Bob Mondello with his selective preview.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: If Summer is superhero season, cooler weather is when the young adult fiction folk come out to play.
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EDDIE REDMAYNE: (As Newt Scamander) There's strange things going on all over the city.
MONDELLO: Think Katniss and her "Hunger Games" pals...
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REDMAYNE: (As Newt Scamander) People behind this are not like you and me.
MONDELLO: ...Bella and the "Twilight" gang.
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KATHERINE WATERSTON: (As Porpentina Goldstein) Yesterday a wizard entered New York with a case...
MONDELLO: ...And yes, Harry and his Potterites.
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WATERSTON: (As Porpentina Goldstein) ...A case full of magical creatures.
MONDELLO: The others are done, but the Potterites rights are back.
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WATERSTON: (As Porpentina Goldstein) And unfortunately some have escaped.
MONDELLO: J.K. Rowling's fantastic beasts and where to find them is an extension of the Potter universe with a fresh hero and critters for days. And there will be plenty of competition in the critter department from "A Monster Calls," which is about a young boy who summons help to deal with family trauma.
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LIAM NEESON: (As The Monster) You called for a monster.
MONDELLO: There will also be animated baby deliverers in "Storks," animated troll dolls in "Trolls," and Tim Burton will conjure up a whole houseful of oddities in "Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children."
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ASA BUTTERFIELD: (As Jacob Portman) He's invisible.
EVA GREEN: (As Miss Alma LeFay Perigrine) Of course. We're what's known in common parlance as peculiar. It's a recessive gene carried down through families.
MONDELLO: Also peculiar or, at any rate, strange is "Doctor Strange," Marvel's first film foray into the occult part of its universe. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the New York surgeon who travels to Nepal seeking healing and ancient wisdom.
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CHIWETEL EJIOFOR: (As Baron Karl Mordo) Be careful which paths you travel down, Strange. Stronger men than you have lost their way.
MONDELLO: He finds no critters to speak of but plenty of mentors and mysticism.
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BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: (As Dr. Stephen Strange) Oh, what's this, my mantra?
EJIOFOR: (As Baron Karl Mordo) The Wi-Fi password - we're not savages.
MONDELLO: As long as he's brought us back to the real world, let's stay there a moment. Fall is often a time for biopics and other true stories torn from the headlines. They make good Oscar bait after all. In "Sully" directed by Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks plays the airline pilot who landed a faltering jet in the Hudson River seven years ago.
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TOM HANKS: (As Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger) This is the captain. Brace for impact.
VALERIE MAHAFFEY: (As Diane Higgins) What?
MONDELLO: Mark Wahlberg meanwhile will be caught up in the Gulf oil spill that became one of history's biggest environmental disasters.
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MONDELLO: The film "Deepwater Horizon" amounts to 97 minutes of nerve-jangling tension. A pair of films set in Virginia tell true stories of racial prejudice. Nate Parker's "The Birth Of A Nation" revisits the tragic Nat Turner slave uprising of 1831.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) What we going to do?
NATE PARKER: (As Nat Turner) We'll fight. Once it begins, our brothers and sisters will join. And we'll number in the hundreds, thousands, even.
MONDELLO: And the film "Loving" looks at the interracial marriage that was strong enough to overturn miscegenation laws 136 years after Nat Turner.
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RUTH NEGGA: (As Mildred Loving) Richie...
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) What you doing in bed with that woman?
NEGGA: (As Mildred Loving) I'm his wife.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) That's no good here.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Richard Perry Loving, being a white person, and Mildred Jeter, being a colored person, did unlawfully cohabitate as man and wife.
NEGGA: (As Mildred Loving) Richard...
JOEL EDGERTON: (As Richard Loving, unintelligible).
MONDELLO: Another legal battle fuels the film "Denial."
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TIMOTHY SPALL: (As David Irving) I've got a thousand dollars to give anyone who can show me a document in proof of the Holocaust.
RACHEL WEISZ: (As Deborah Lipstadt) I will not debate you - not here, not now, not ever.
SPALL: (As David Irving) Because you can't.
MONDELLO: Other real-life stories include "Queen of Katwe," the tale of a Ugandan chess prodigy...
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Why are you letting her win?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) I'm not letting her.
MONDELLO: ..."Bleed For This," about Boxer Vinny Paz who broke his neck but was determined to get back in the ring...
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AARON ECKHART: (As Kevin Rooney) You just don't know how to give up.
MILES TELLER: (As Vinny Pazienza) No, I know exactly how to give up. You know what scares me, Kev, is that it's easy.
MONDELLO: ...And "Hacksaw Ridge" about a World War II soldier who changed a lot of minds about conscientious objectors.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) Private Doss, you are free to run into the hellfire of battle without a single weapon to protect yourself.
MONDELLO: That is exactly what he does in "Hacksaw Ridge" to rescue his fallen comrades.
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ANDREW GARFIELD: (As Desmond T. Doss) I'm going to get you home.
MONDELLO: Of all the season's true stories, perhaps the most eccentric is a musical, a verbatim musical called "London Road," its script culled from interviews...
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OLIVIA COLMAN: (As Julie, singing) Everyone is very, very nervous.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #6: (As character) This is on the road where the suspect was arrested.
MONDELLO: ...Interviews with the neighbors of a notorious serial killer.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, singing, unintelligible) Police cars.
MONDELLO: "London Road" was adapted from a stage production, while quite a few fall films were adapted from novels. Philip Roth's Pulitzer-winning "American Pastoral," say, about a man whose life comes apart when his daughter becomes a revolutionary...
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #7: (As character) The police have widened their search for the missing teenager.
MONDELLO: ...The best-seller "Girl On A Train," also centered on a young woman gone missing.
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EMILY BLUNT: (As Rachel Watson) I saw her. I saw her from the train.
MONDELLO: "The Da Vinci Code" series returns with symbologist Tom Hanks unraveling the mysteries of Dante in "Inferno."
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HANKS: (As Robert Langdon) These circles of hell have been rearranged. Why Dante? Dante's death mask - yes. We've got to get to Florence.
MONDELLO: And Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher - well, who knows what he'll get up to in "Never Go Back."
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TOM CRUISE: (As Jack Reacher) Two things are going to happen in the next 90 seconds.
JASON DOUGLAS: (As Sheriff) Excuse me.
CRUISE: (As Jack Reacher) First, that phone over there's going to ring. Second, you're going to be wearing these cuffs on your way to prison.
DOUGLAS: (As Sheriff) Well, that is one magnificent prophecy, Mr. Reacher.
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CRUISE: (As Jack Reacher) Just going to keep on ringing.
MONDELLO: Also from literary sources - the marital drama "Nocturnal Animals" with Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams and a war hero epic that Ang Lee shot at a hyper-realistic 120 frames per second. It's called "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk."
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JOE ALWYN: (As Billy Lynn) It's sort of weird being honored for the worst day of your life.
MONDELLO: Shooting at five times the usual film speed makes this one sound a little experimental, but there are also reassuringly tried and true projects - a new mockumentary, for instance, from the director of "Best In Show." Christopher Guest's "Mascots" is about the Fluffies, a competition for the nation's best sports mascot.
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PARKER POSEY: (As character) I went to the Fluffies five years ago. I got honorable mention. That's like first place really, but it's a weird first place.
MONDELLO: Also more or less presold are sequels for the "Bridget Jones" and "Blair Witch" movies and a high-powered remake of an iconic Western.
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HALEY BENNETT: (As Emma Cullen) We're decent people being driven from our home.
DENZEL WASHINGTON: (As Chisolm) So you seek revenge.
BENNETT: (As Emma Cullen) I seek righteousness, but I'll take revenge.
MONDELLO: Director Antoine Fuqua has upgraded the firepower a bit for his new "Magnificent Seven," bringing a Gatling gun to the big showdown. And speaking of showdowns, the Affleck brothers are going head to head in two of the season's most anticipated dramas - Ben Affleck playing an autistic genius in "The Accountant"...
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BEN AFFLECK: (As Chris) I have difficulty socializing with other people.
MONDELLO: ...While Casey Affleck plays a grief-stricken guardian in "Manchester By The Sea."
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CASEY AFFLECK: (As Lee Chandler) What happened to my brother?
MONDELLO: The story of estranged family members who must learn to communicate, "Manchester By The Sea" is already garnering Oscar talk. And if you think family communication is tough, try talking with aliens from another planet. That's what Amy Adams has to do with the stakes very high in "Arrival."
AMY ADAMS: (As Dr. Louise Banks) We need to make sure that they understand the difference between a weapon and a tool. Language is messy, and sometimes one can be both.
MONDELLO: All this before Thanksgiving and the arrival of year-end blockbusters and awards contenders. Hollywood is messy, and sometimes one can be both. I'm Bob Mondello. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
