*By Max Godnick* As summer becomes autumn, temperatures will drop, the leaves will turn pumpkin-spice brown ー and blockbusters will turn to Oscar bait. The Venice Film Festival [marked](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/venice-film-festival-kicks-award-season-180829063823134.html) the unofficial start of awards season this week, signaling a line of new contenders to begin their long (and in some cases, inevitable) marches to the podium. Summer will be a hard act to follow after $4.4 billion in ticket sales, just shy of the record-holding $4.7 billion season in 2013. Competition is also strong on the [small screen](https://cheddar.com/videos/fall-tv-preview-reboots-remakes-roseanne-without-roseanne) as dozens of prestige series are soon to hit networks and streaming platforms. But fall remains the movie industry's equivalent of prime time. Not since ["The Hurt Locker"](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hurt_locker/) in 2009 has a Best Picture winner premiered before Labor Day. And this year it's not just biopics and tearjerkers. Big-budget popcorn fare will finally have a shot at awards glory too, thanks to the Academy's [controversial](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-oscars-get-shorter-younger-and-more-relevant-with-new-changes) new "Achievement in Popular Film" award. Cheddar spoke with Brian Truitt, entertainment writer at USA Today, on Friday about the season's most highly anticipated releases. **"First Man" (Universal): Premiering October 12** Ryan Gosling is Neil Armstrong in this dramatization of the first manned (get it?) mission to the moon. The film's premiere earned a three-minute standing ovation in Venice this week, and early reviews have praised strong performances from Gosling and co-star Claire Foy ("The Crown"), high-octane special effects, and another strong turn from director Damien Chazelle, who came [oh-so-close](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCQn_FkFElI&t=3s) to winning Best Picture for "La La Land" in 2017. "First Man" has already [drummed up](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fox-friends-calls-ryan-gosling-an-idiot-for-moon-landing-comments_us_5b8943aee4b0cf7b0034eb15) some controversy ahead of its release. *Truitt's Take:* "This is bigger than anything \[Chazelle's\] ever done. This is not really a Neil Armstrong biopic, but just about all the disasters the space program had to deal with going up to the 1969 moon landing. You see a real visionary making a story here. It's not going to be a run of the mill space story. I think there's going to be a lot of interesting stuff that he puts in here." **"A Star Is Born" (Warner Bros.): Premiering October 5** Lady Gaga is trading in her meat dress for a meet-cute in her first starring film role. Bradley Cooper doubles as the director and leading man of this remake of a remake of a remake of the classic story of an aspiring ingenue catching her big break. The movie rises tonight at the Venice Film Festival, and at least one critic already broke an embargo to [gush](http://www.vulture.com/2018/08/a-star-is-born-review-dubs-it-greatest-film-of-all-time.html) about what he calls the greatest movie in cinematic history. *Truitt's Take:* "This is the one I can't wait for. I don't get that excited by trailers a lot, but when I saw the trailer for this I was like, 'Ok I'm in, whatever happens, I'm in for this.' Because it is Lady Gaga at her least Lady Gaga-ness. She's kind of a stripped-down singer-songwriter here, and Bradley Cooper's never directed a film before. It looks really cool, he sings, we already know he can act and talk like an alien raccoon, so this will be kind of the next step for him." **"Bohemian Rhapsody" (20th Century Fox): Premiering November 2** Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy? That might be the question Fox is asking itself after finally getting this Freddie Mercury biopic to the big screen after an eight-year production process. Sacha Baron Cohen was originally tapped to don the Queen frontman's iconic mustache before creative differences with the real Queen led to the hiring of Rami Malek ("Mr. Robot"). Portraying a musical hero is among the most sure-fire ways for an actor to win his first Oscar ー just ask Jamie Foxx or Reese Witherspoon. *Truitt's Take:* "Everybody loves Freddie Mercury, everybody loves Queen. So I feel like if it doesn't nail everything about this, it may divide a lot of people." **"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Crimes of Grindelwald" (Warner Bros.): Premiering November 16** And now for the blockbusters. Harry Potter is officially an extended cinematic universe thanks to this sequel to the 2016 spin-off. Eddie Redmayne returns alongside Jude Law, playing a (much) younger Albus Dumbledore than audiences know. But it's Johnny Depp's turn as the titular wizard that's plaguing the characters with a dash of the dark arts. Warner Bros. hopes Depp's [personal troubles](https://people.com/movies/johnny-depp-claims-amber-heard-assault-she-denies/) won't stand in the way of surpassing the first movie's $814 million haul. *Truitt's Take:* "I think this could be really interesting. I loved the first 'Fantastic Beasts.' I was a little hesitant going into that, just because I was like, 'Are we passed Harry Potter a little bit?' But 'Fantastic Beasts' recaptured that magic for me in a lot of ways." **"Venom" (Sony): Premiering October 5** It's a Spider-Man movie without Spider-Man ー or Marvel Studios. Disney snagged back the rights to the friendly neighborhood vigilante from Sony in 2015, but the studio still has a roster of other satellite characters and villains from the Spidey-verse. Tom Hardy plays the reptilian anti-hero with a tongue rivaling only that of Kiss's Gene Simmons in this new turn. The English actor is used to obscuring his famous face for his biggest roles after ["The Dark Knight Rises"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDuetklFtDQ), ["Mad Max: Fury Road"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcgn4EY5_S8), and ["Dunkirk"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ml0r-5U3lw). But have no fear, Hardos ー [the poster](https://geektyrant.com/news/new-poster-for-venom-highlights-tom-hardys-transformation) still shows half of it. *Truitt's Take:* "We don't know how this connects yet. We don't know if there are going to be little Easter eggs, like somebody talks about Steve Rogers in passing or something, we just don't know that yet. It does seem like this is very much standalone. We have not been introduced to Venom in the Marvel Studios film yet."
