These are some of the highlights of the silver screen
offerings for the New Year.
Once again, it’s time to take a look ahead at some of
the films due
out in 2005. This is not a comprehensive list by any
means; I’m just
culling through the ones the IMDB
lists with definite release dates in the next few
months. Release dates are subject to change without
notice.
January
- January 7 – White Noise: A story about the
dead
communicating with the living. - January 14 – Elektra: The
Daredevil spinoff. The
screen writer is an unknown, but the director is Rob
Bowman (who also
directed X-Files: Fight the Future and
Reign of
Fire), so it seems like a good place to use
those gifts
certificats I got for Christmas. - January 28 – Hide and Seek: Based on the
description, this
may or may not be genre, but it looks interesting
anyway. - January 28 – Alone in the Dark: A movie
about a paranormal
detective starring Christian Slater and Tara
Reid.
February
- February 4 – Boogeyman: The Boogeyman is
real. - February 18 – Constantine: In another
comic book
adaptation, Keeanu Reeves investigates the
supernatural. - February 18 – Son of the Mask: Jamie
Kennedy and Alan
Cumming are pretty likeable in most things, but I
have a bad feeling
about this one. - February 25 – Cursed: Friends band
together to protect
themselves from a werewolf.
March
- March 11 – Robots: A CGI film with the
voice talents of
Robin Williams, Ewan McGregor, Halle Berry, Mel
Brooks, Greg Kinnear,
Drew Carey, and Amanda Bynes. - March 11 – A Sound of Thunder: A great
cast goes back in
time to hunt dinosaurs and botches things up.
Inspired by a Ray
Bradbury short story. - March 18 – The Ring Two: It’s a sequel.
What more need
you know? - March 18 – Steamboy: I hadn’t heard of it,
but it sounds
like it has promise. Anime.
April
- April 1 – Sin City: Based on the comic
book, and
co-directed by creator Frank Miller, so it should be
an accurate
adaptation to say the least. - April 8 – The Cave: A monster under the
water story. - April 15 – The Amityville Horror: A remake
of the
classic.
May
- May 6 – The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The
Galaxy: Don’t
panic. The teaser trailer convinces me that they are
familiar with
the major story elements and with some of what fans
love about it.
Hopefully, that’ll translate into the rest of the
film, too. - May 19 – Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of
the Sith: A
Thursday opening this time, which is an interesting
choice. The
previous releases were all on Wednesdays. A
Wednesday release usually
indicates faith in word of mouth advertising to fill
the seats over
that crucial first weekend. A Thursday release does
that, too, but if
the Thursday’s a holiday, then it gives the
filmmakers a chance to
break opening day box office records because matinee
screenings will
be more readily available. They’re going for
marketing based on
income for this one. As of today, there are no other
films slated for
release that week, and no genre releases for the rest
of the month.
Nobody expects to be able to compete with it, which
is another good
sign about the studio-side word of mouth. This may
well be the best
of the prequels, but will it compete with the
originals?
June
- June 10 – The Adventures of
Shark Girl and
Lava Boy in 3-D: A boy’s imaginary superhero
friends come to
life. - June 17 – Batman Begins: This
is looking good so
far. - June 29 – War of the Worlds:
The latest
collaboration of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise gets
a Wednesday
opening. This is my prediction for the gargantuan
hit of the summer,
although it certainly won’t be a strictly accurate
adaptation.
July
- July 1 – Fantastic Four: I love the
comics, but I’m not
sold on the casting, director, or screenwriter.
Expect a review. - July 1 – Undead: A zombie flick.
- July 8 – Bewitched: Nicole Kidman and Will
Ferrell are the
leads in this TV-show-turned-movie. - July 15 – Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory: Another Tim
Burton/Johnny Depp collaboration. Should be
good. - July 22 – The Island: Sounds like a
dystopia with a
promising cast of Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson,
and Steve
Buscemi. Directed by Michael Bay. - July 29 – Stealth: Another “A.I. gone
evil” story.
August
- August 5 – Doom: Based on the id software
classic. - August 19 – Zu Warrios: The entire
description reads:
“Soldiers fight to save the universe in ancient
China.” It was
purchased for distribution in a package deal with
Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon, Shaolin Soccer, and
Hero.
September
- September 2 – The Woods: A horror film
about something
creepy in the woods next to a private girls’
school. - September 16 – A Scanner Darly: Keeanu
Reeves and Winona
Ryder star in this Philip K. Dick adaptation. The
book has been
tempting me for some time. - September 23 – The Corpse Bride: A dead
woman wants some
action. Another Tim Burton / Johnny Depp
collaboration. - September 30 – Serenity: You can’t take
the sky from me,
but Timeshredder went and claimed the review before I
did. You can
expect a few Bureau 42 authors to be in line opening
night.
October
- October 7 – The Wallace and Gromit Movie: The
Curse of the
Wererabbit: Wallace and Gromit on the big screen.
I’m sold. - October 14 – The Fog: A ghost story in
time for
Hallowe’en. - October 21 – Land of the Dead: Directed by
George
A. Romero.
November
- November 4 – Chicken Little: The sky is
falling. - November 18 – Harry Potter and the Goblet of
Fire: A great
book that will be difficult to effectively adapt to a
2.5 hour
movie. - November 25 – The Brothers Grimm: Like
Galaxy
Quest, but with magic, and possibly not a
comedy. - November 25 – Zathura: A house gets
blasted into space.
December
- December 9 – The Chronicles of Narnia: The
Lion, the Witch, and
the Wardrobe: A fantasy classic hits the big
screen. - December 16 – King Kong: The remake by the
man who brought
us The Lord of the Rings. Expect a
review.
Fantastic Four
I’ve heard that they were intimidated by Elastigirl and had to go back and redo some of their Mr. Fantastic effects. Nothing I’ve heard about this movie so far has been good… they couldn’t find an aryan actress to play the invisible woman? Hollywood is overrun with pretty blondes with blue eyes! Why pick a latina? Sure, she’s hot, but she doesn’t look the part. I’m affraid.
And if Undead is what I think it is (a zombie comedy from down under), it’s a lot of fun. It had the fastest zombification I had ever seen… until the new Dawn of the Dead brought us the hyper zombies on speed that is.
P.S. HAPPY NEW YEAR and thanks for this list of the “genre” movies to come this year.
P.P.S. What happened to the more faithfull british War of the World?
Re: Fantastic Four
$20 million was spent to beef up the final sequence.
That’s the one.
It doesn’t have a specific release date that the IMDB is
aware of, so it didn’t appear on the list.
Re: Fantastic Four
Speak no ill of the Lady Alba! She’s welcome to play any part in any movie. She could have been cast to play Hamlet in a colloborative Jerry Bruckheimer/Andrew Lloyd Webber action musical “reinterpretation of Shakespeare” and I’d still fork out cash out of my wallet for the movie ticket just because she’s in it. So there.
Re: Fantastic Four and The Fog
Spoken like a true geek living in his parents basement ;)
The Fog, would this be a remake of the nasty movie made by James Cameron?
Alone In The Drek
Hmm… an adaptation of one of the greatest horror games from teh man who brought you House of the Dead? I think I’ll pass.
Preview looks ok
The trailer looks a lot better than HotD. Of course I’ve note played the game so they could be completely missing the whole point.
Damien
Re: Preview looks ok
The trailer I saw looked like they’d completely missed the point of the game – instead of going for the “H.P. Lovecraft: so spooky you’ll go insane” vibe, they went for the “hey, Resident Evil: Apocalypse was pretty damn cool, so we’ll need guns to shoot things” vibe.
I think Tycho summed it up pretty well: Why do they let Uwe Boll make movies? I could be a little off base – it’s been better than ten years since I played an Alone in the Dark title, but what I remember is game that relied on atmosphere to create a sense of fear (something perfected in Resident Evil 2, a game which left me unable to sleep for several days) – time will tell, I suppose, but with Christian Slater as the male lead how good can it really be?
I’d like to see most…
.. though they’ll most likely be via rental.
Re: I’d like to see most…
I’m definately going to watch all of these in theaters.
Zu Warriors and Elektra because I play Feng Shui. I’ll need to see a trailer before Narnia, but I’ll probably see that in theaters. Episode III probably needs to be seen in theaters at least once just because of the scope of some of the scenes. Sin City looks majorly kick-ass.
Re: I’d like to see most…
1- I heard on a snob show on radio once something that made a lot of sense: Keanu is really good in any role where there is something wrong with his character’s brain. Be it that it’s used as a portable HD by yakuzas, or there’s a giant hole in the back of his skull and agents want him dead. ;-)
2- I’ll buy a brown coat and wear it to the movie!
3- King Kong, even if I don’t understand why this movie needs another remake, it just has to be seen on a BIG screen! Duh!
Re: I’d like to see most…
Now that’s an idea!
Damien
Re: I’d like to see most…
Man… that movie sucked, hard. He was good in the first Matrix, though, and my theory on why is that his character was supposed to be completely befuddled. Keanu is quite capable of playing a character who has no idea what the HELL is going on. Anything else seems to be a stretch…