Screens & Tech
With doomsday fast approaching, here are the films you can take refuge in this year
Courtesy photos
Haywire
Published: January 10, 2012
According to analysts from BTIG, a strategic research company that predicts trends including those in the entertainment industry, movie attendance is headed for a significant decline in 2012. Blame it on fear of the impending Mayan calendar apocalypse or the outrageous 3-D ticket prices, but even recent statistics from the Motion Picture Association of America confirm people just aren't going to the movies as much as they did in years past.
Whatever the reason for the drop, it seems like the movie-going public is getting harder to please and wants more bang for their buck. While scouting for that bang, we noticed some potential moneymakers scheduled to hit theaters in the next 12 months. We'll start with the cinematic graveyard known as January and work our way up to the Oscar hopefuls of December. But only until December 20, since the fire and brimstone falling from the sky the following day won't do the box office any favors. Sorry Django Unchained and The Great Gatsby. Kukulkan has spoken.
January
Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh returns to the mainstream with Haywire, an action-thriller featuring a female super soldier (Gina Carano) out for revenge. Liam Neeson could sure use her black ops training to fight off the pack of wild Alaskan wolves trying to devour him and his team of oil drillers in The Grey.
February
With the Harry Potter franchise behind him, Daniel Radcliffe goes wandless as a lawyer in London who encounters a pissed-off ghost in The Woman in Black, while Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds dodge South African rebel gunfire as a criminal/CIA agent duo in Safe House.
March
While Will Ferrell speaking only Spanish in the comedy Casa de mi Padre sounds like a riot, most moviegoers will flock to The Hunger Games, based on Suzanne Collins's young-adult sci-fi novel, or the cinematic version of '80s Johnny Depp TV-show-turned-action-comedy 21 Jump Street starring Channing Tatum and a less puffy Jonah Hill.
April
The sex-crazed teens from the American Pie series return for American Reunion. But who ever heard of a 13-year reunion? If the fuzzy math (and possible dick-in-pastry scene) is too much for you to handle, maybe The Five-Year Engagement will fill your comedy void. It stars Jason Segel and Emily Blunt as a couple whose wedding keeps getting delayed.
May
Two movies ready to battle it out for pre-summer supremacy are The Avengers and Men in Black III. Fanboys have been geared up to see Marvel superheroes share the same screen for a few years now, so Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are going to need a galaxy-sized showing if they want their comic-book movie to top the mother of all comic-book universes.
June
It's not an Alien prequel as first imagined, but Ridley Scott's Prometheus is bound to evoke similarities to his classic 1979 sci-fi horror as a team of explorers discover an extraterrestrial race. Also Pixar's new film Brave features the animation studio's first lone female heroine.
July
A second incarnation of Spider-Man takes on a third installment of Batman in this head-to-head comic-book confrontation. Director Christopher Nolan has six months to stop being stubborn and fix Bane's blubbery voice for The Dark Knight Rises. New web slinger Andrew Garfield hopes fans soon forget the name Tobey Maguire when he brings his own spider-sense to The Amazing Spider-Man, directed fittingly by Marc Webb.
August
Jeremy Renner replaces Matt Damon and director Tony Gilroy steps in for Paul Greengrass for The Bourne Legacy, the next installment of the Bourne series (sans Jason Bourne). If a Damonless sequel makes you shudder, maybe a remake of 1990's sci-fi stunner Total Recall starring Colin Farrell will be a welcomed return to the Red Planet.
September
Actor-turned-director Ben Affleck proved his first film, 2007's Gone Baby Gone, wasn't a fluke when he released the critically acclaimed crime drama, The Town, in 2010. He returns to the director's chair this year with Argo, the true story behind the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran in 1979.
October
Just in time for Halloween, director Tim Burton remakes his 1984 short live-action film Frankenweenie into a stop-motion animated feature. Then there's Gangster Squad, a crime drama directed by Ruben Fleischer about the LAPD's attempt to keep the mafia out of L.A. in the '40s and '50s. The film's heavy hitters include Ryan Gosling and Sean Penn.
November
After some major studio problems, Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes took the reigns of Skyfall, the third James Bond film starring Daniel Craig as Agent 007. Hopefully the film, which also stars Javier Bardem and Ralph Fiennes, will be more like the fresh and exciting Casino Royale and less like the mediocre Quantum of Solace.
December
The return to Middle Earth comes in prequel form with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which follows Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and his quest to save a dwarf kingdom. Rounding out the year right before doomsday hits is the untitled Osama Bin Laden project by The Hurt Locker's Kathryn Bigelow. Nothing says holiday cheer like covert assassinations of Islamic terrorists. •
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