Direct Imaging of Exoplanets at the Era of the Extremely Large Telescopes

Within ten years, the era of large-scale systematics surveys will decay thanks to a complete census of exoplanetary systems within 200 pc from the Sun. With the first Lights foreseen between 2024 and 2028, the new generation of extremely large telescopes and planet imagers will arrive at a propitious time to exploit this manna of discoveries to characterize the formation, the evolution, and the physics of giant and telluric planets with the ultimate goal to search and discover bio-signatures. In that perspective, I will briefly summarize the main characteristics of the direct imaging instruments of the ELTs dedicated to the study of exoplanets, and I will review the key science cases (from the initial conditions of planetary formation, the architecture of planetary systems and the physics and atmospheres of giant and telluric planets) that they will address given their predicted performances.