Yesterday in this spot, we bemoaned the state of the summer blockbuster, and explored why the blockbuster-season films coming up in May and June might finally help kill off the blockbuster concept. (Or save it, but how likely is that?) Today, in true summer-movie style: the inevitable sequel.
Hancock (July 2)
Plot: In what looks like a clever twist on his good-guy persona, Will Smith plays a depressed, alcoholic superhero pariah who hires a publicist (Jason Bateman) to help improve his image, then begins an affair with the flack's foxy wife (Charlize Theron).
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: With its promising premise and solid cast, this looks to be one of the summer's few bright spots, creatively and commercially. If it tanks with audiences or critics, however, the summer will begin to look awfully grim. Also, we're getting a faint but discernible My Super Ex-Girlfriend vibe from the trailer.
Why it might help save them: Special-effects-driven summer blockbusters tend to be bland and inoffensive by design, but this looks like the rare blockbuster with a bracingly dark undercurrent.
The Dark Knight (July 11)
Plot: Having survived the multi-front assault of Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul in Batman Begins, the caped crusader Batman (played once again by Christian Bale) now has to protect Gotham City from a new threat: a pasty-faced freak who calls himself The Joker.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: It's going to be impossible to promote The Dark Knight without playing up the untimely death of star Heath Ledger, which will either turn potential audiences off or, more disturbingly, bring them in.
Why it might help save them: Batman Begins was a solid adventure flick, and director Christopher Nolan is a mainstream filmmaker with a rare command of craft and storytelling. In a summer of superheroes, The Dark Knight may be the super-est.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (July 11)
Plot: Mike Mignola's demonic troubleshooter and his supernaturally talented friends return to save the world from a spirit-world attack.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: The first Hellboy movie didn't even make its production costs back in theaters, let alone pay for its marketing and distribution. Churning out another one—with a bigger budget, yet—seems like someone's concentrated effort to help kill the blockbuster concept. Are there any blockbuster-hating supervillains out there?
Why it might help save them: Writer-director Guillermo del Toro, who also helmed the first Hellboy, is still riding high on the success of his last film, Pan's Labyrinth. And at least this particular comic-book adaptation is in the hands of someone who seems to authentically love his source material.
Meet Dave (July 11)
Plot: Eddie Murphy teams up again with Norbit director Brian Robbins for another multi-Murphy comedy, this time about miniature aliens who inhabit a Murphy-shaped spaceship.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: The thought of filmmakers trying to capture Norbit's lightning in a bottle once more is chilling enough to consider, but if they pull it off, summer entertainment in the future may be targeted exclusively to single-celled organisms. Excellent news for Protococcus algae, which currently can't get enough of Deal Or No Deal.
Why it might help save them: The only chance Meet Dave has of saving anything is by failing horribly. Otherwise, humanity is doomed.
Mamma Mia! (July 18)
Plot: Based on the hit Abba musical, this featherweight romantic trifle stars Meryl Streep as the single proprietor of a hotel on an idyllic Greek island and Amanda Seyfried as her soon-to-be-married daughter, who has plans to reunite with her long-lost father and find her mother a new man.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: The road from Broadway to Hollywood has been a lucrative one, as last summer's sleeper hit Hairspray testifies. But a musical structured around Abba songs sounds awfully flimsy. Can an adaptation of the Legally Blonde musical be far behind?
Why it might help save them: Why shouldn't summer be a time for sun-dappled frivolity in the Greek isles? People saw Hairspray because it was bright, entertaining, and relatively light-footed next to the usual clanking blockbusters. Perhaps the season is well-served by a little airiness.
The Longshots (July 25)
Plot: Ice Cube stars in the true story of an 11-year-old girl who fights for her right to play Pop Warner football. (Sadly, Ice Cube does not play the 11-year-old girl.)
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: Four words: "Directed by Fred Durst."
Why it might help save them: It probably won't do much for blockbusters, but any project that keeps Limp Bizkit frontman (and amateur porn star) Durst off the streets is a net gain for the culture at large.
Step Brothers (July 25)
Plot: Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play adults who still live with their single parents, and have to move in together when those parents get married. The disruption in the boys' slacker routine prompts an elevated version of sibling rivalry.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: The demand for this kind of goofy, oddly penetrating R-rated comedy seems to have dropped precipitously since the boom times of summer '07. Also, audiences may not feel the need to see this Ferrell film when they know another one will likely be coming up in just a few months.
Why it might help save them: A lot of Ferrell and Reilly's best comic shtick is based on a fussy kind of arrested adolescence, and director Adam McKay is one of the rare modern comedy directors who actually cares whether his movies look good. This could be the movie that makes the multiplexes safe for comedy buffs again.
The X-Files: I Want To Believe (July 25)
Plot: Still a carefully kept secret, but it reunites X-Files TV stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as a pair of ex-government agents investigating supernaturally tinged cases, and it's directed and co-written by original series creator Chris Carter.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: It will remind people of TV, and they'll stop watching theatrical movies (with their increasingly high prices and obnoxious, socially oblivious, vocal audiences) and return to quiet entertainment in the privacy of their own homes.
Why it might help save them: Perhaps moviegoers, too, want to believe.
The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (August 1)
Plot: You know those first two Mummy movies? This'll be exactly like those, only somehow different. Brendan Fraser's latest big-screen romp finds him matching wits with a resurrected Chinese emperor played by Jet Li. Plus, he's got a kid! And a different actress (Maria Bello) plays his wife. Maybe there's a talking dog or something. Honestly, we couldn't be less excited.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: Wasn't 2001's The Mummy Returns the kind of ubiquitous blockbuster everyone sees and no one likes? Sequels to those kinds of movies generally run smack-dab into a brick wall of public indifference.
Why it might help save them: According to Wikipedia, Maria Bello signed on for a whopping three Mummy sequels. So it seems like someone's pretty damn cocky about the film's box-office chances. Universal apparently feels there's more than enough room this summer for both an Indiana Jones sequel people are legitimately excited about, and a long-in-the-works second sequel to a blatant Indiana Jones knock-off.
Pineapple Express (August 8)
Plot: A stoner (Seth Rogen) and his dealer (James Franco) go on the run when one of them witnesses a murder and worries that the rare strain of weed left at the scene could be traced back to them.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: Stories about lazy, pot-smoking, dick-joke-obsessed slobs have become the bread and butter of producer Judd Apatow, but the sheer ubiquity of his name has bred contempt. Forgetting Sarah Marshall backlashed the backlash a little, but will there will be a backlash to the backlashed backlash?
Why it might help save them: Hiring a left-field stylist like David Gordon Green (George Washington) was a masterstroke, and might rescue this comedy from the plague of visual indifference. And based on the terrific redband trailer, this should be Apatow's third straight quality late-summer cash-in, following The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Superbad.
The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2 (August 8)
Plot: All those burning questions from the first Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants will be answered at last!
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: Early word says that the CGI effects do not match those employed in the first Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants movie.
Why it might help save them: It might not live up to the fevered anticipation that's built since the first Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants (or SOTTP, as those in the know call it), but if it does… boy howdy!
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (August 15)
Plot: A missing chapter in the Star Wars chapter gets filled in via this 3D computer-animated entry, which follows Obi-Wan and Anakin as they battle clones. Or are the clones the good guys? This series has gotten really confusing.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: We've been down this road before, with a well-received, Genndy Tartakovsky-produced series for the Cartoon Network. Do we need to go down it again, especially with a film that appears to be a setup for yet another TV series?
Why it might help save them: It's a Star Wars movie. Those are always great, right?
Tropic Thunder (August 15)
Plot: Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, and co-writer/director Ben Stiller play three vain actors who sign onto an Oscar-bait war movie, and are then unknowingly dropped into an actual combat zone.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: Tropic Thunder has already sparked some controversy over Downey's character: an Australian Method actor who has his skin chemically darkened so he can play a black soldier. If that joke doesn't play, it'll make for a long, uncomfortable night at the movies.
Why it might help save them: During the recent run of comedy smashes masterminded by Judd Apatow and/or Will Ferrell, the Stiller sensibility has been largely absent. Here's hoping that the time off has given one of the brightest comic minds of the '90s a chance to regain his sense of humor.
Bangkok Dangerous (August 22)
Plot: In Danny and Oxide Pang's remake of their own derivative Hong Kong-style action thriller, Nicolas Cage stars as a remorseless assassin who starts to go soft while trying to pull off four executions for a Bangkok crime boss.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: There's no greater sign of creative desperation than having a foreign film Americanized by its original creators, especially when those creators are as reliably mediocre as the Pang brothers, who have already failed twice in Hollywood with The Messengers and the Jessica Alba redo of their passable film The Eye.
Why it might help save them: Ghost Rider. The Wicker Man. Next. With Nicholas Cage's track record of late, what could possibly go wrong?
The House Bunny (August 22)
Plot: When a bubbly nude model (Anna Faris) gets thrown out of the Playboy mansion, she lands at another mansion on a college campus, where she serves as housemother to socially awkward sorority girls.
Why it'll help kill blockbusters: Coming at the end of a summer loaded with brain-dead comedies, the stirring tale of sorority nerds turned princesses may well cause open revolt, much like the riots that followed the firing of French Cinémathèque founder Henri Langlois. Either that, or people will just choose to see that dopey-looking Nicolas Cage movie instead.
Why it might help save them: Faris is one the brightest young screen comediennes out there, and she's almost always the best thing about anything she appears in. If she ever stars in a Hollywood movie that's even semi-tolerable, watch out.
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