As we prepare for 2018—which absolutely, positively, has to be better than 2017—we’ve followed the example of the great Chris Wallace and asked the TWS staff for predictions for next year along four vectors: politics, sports, entertainment, and foreign policy.
Happy New Year!
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2018 Predictions: Entertainment
Andrew Egger: Emboldened by the warm critical reception of The Last Jedi, Disney will tap director Darren Aronofsky to head the upcoming off-year spinoff: Father! A Star Wars Story.
It will be a nightmarish three-hour reimagining of the Empire Strikes Back scene where Luke Skywalker has a vision of Darth Vader in the Dagobah cave. The New Yorker will declare it the best Star Wars yet while series fans swear never to watch another new installment. A vow they will keep until the next teaser trailer arrives.
William Kristol: The world will no longer resist the self-evident correctness of “The Case for the Empire” in Star Wars.
Ethan Epstein: Christopher Plummer will win the Academy Award for one of the most bizarre acting feats in recent memory: His stepping in and quickly reshooting Kevin Spacey’s entire part in All the Money in the World. Plummer will then say something impolitic. The Academy will immediately regret honoring the octogenarian.
Alice B. Lloyd: Women will win all the awards. It will be problematic, however, when white women win more awards than people of color, at which point a flock of think pieces will declare the #metoo movement has gone too far.
Rachael Larimore: Tom Hanks and/or Denzel Washington will be cast in every movie to go into production in 2018 as they are the only A-list actors not brought down by sexual misconduct claims. For good measure, they’ll make a buddy-cop movie together.
Stephen F. Hayes: Many of the men types involved in the sexual harassment scandals of 2017 will be given “second chances” by the industry, giving new meaning to the phrase “Hollywood ending.”
Adam Keiper: With Omarosa gone, it’s hard to guess who will be voted off Donald Trump’s show in 2018. I hear through the grapevine that the producers anticipate a bigger role next season for Bob Mueller, but I don’t know if he’s really ready for how this kind of reality-TV fame is likely to change his life.
Andrew Ferguson: Taylor Swift accepts President Trump’s offer of the ambassadorship to Sweden.
Chris Deaton: Taylor Swift releases a protest album.
Hannah Yoest: If 2017 was the year poetry made its comeback (specifically, erasure poetry), 2018 will be the year of the short story. The backlash against the backlash against the personal essay will subside and we will see a resurgence of insufferable exculpatory essays on bad sex. Things already look promising as Kristen Roupenian, author of the viral ‘Cat Person’ story, has landed a seven-figure book deal.
Jonathan V. Last: A Wrinkle in Time and Ready Player One will be box office disasters, prompting industry panic even before the summer movie season begins.
Mark Hemingway: After summer of 2017 provided the lowest box office revenue in a decade, full blown panic will grip Hollywood in 2018 as even more Americans opt for cheaper entertainment at home, such as Netflix, video game consoles, and Trump tweets.
Jim Swift: Ocean’s 8 shatters box office records in the face of alt-right hatred, but doesn’t beat Wonder Woman. Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox results in disaster: The notoriously anti-cooperative empire shutters Fox’s TV archives (Simpsons, etc.) and cable subscribers revolt.
Eric Felten: 2018 will be known as “The Year of Polka” as Miley Cyrus has a hit with the “Beer Pong Polka.”
John McCormack: The men of the Weekly Substandard will ask their wives to host an episode. It will be the most popular Substandard episode ever.
