The Wolfman (Feb. 12) – Joe Johnston, the guy who brought you The Rocketeer (yay!) and Jurassic Park III (yuck!), remakes the 1941 horror film, starring Benicio Del Toro as the man who returns home to find that his brother has gone missing and villagers are being destroyed by some sort of mysterious monster. The cast is solid, the director has proven he can handle a big project, and who isn’t psyched to see a modern-day Wolfman wreak havoc?
The Crazies (Feb. 26) – Oh man, have you seen this trailer yet?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEMZwQulT1Q]
Case closed. This George Romero update looks, well, crazy, with the residents of a rural midwestern town turning on one another due to a government experiment that converts them into blood-starved killers. Having grown up in the ‘burbs, I love any story that involves the pristine façade being blasted away by the evil lurking underneath. And this trailer seems to confirm it: Director Breck Eisner will be holding nothing back as he unleashes neighbor on neighbor.
Alice in Wonderland (March 5) – They screened a 3-D Alice trailer prior to Avatar, and it made me even more excited to see how Tim Burton decides to manipulate this medium. When the film’s previews first posted online, the most fascinating details were how Burton distorted the body of the Queen of Hearts, turned Johnny Depp into one twisted Mad Hatter and brought back the Cheshire Cat as a green-eyed feline with a mile-wide smile. But seeing the preview on the big screen, you start to see how Depp is meant to truly tower over the action, how Alice disappears into the screen as she shrinks after the drinking the potion, and how the cat lunges at the audience with his devilish smile. If you’ve only seen the preview on the web, you really don’t have a sense yet of what Burton has in store.
Clash of the Titans (March 26) – This adaptation of the 1981 film has been making its way through Hollywood for what seems like forever. But when the trailer screened before Avatar, I have to admit that CG effects looked like they were worth the wait. Starring Sam Worthington (Avatar) as Perseus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades, the plot basically amounts to two gods battling for dominion over Earth. Same old, same old.
Kick-Ass (April 16) –
I’m pretty damn excited for Kick-Ass, but nowhere near as stoked as Peter. He found this (NSFW) footage online, which shows Hit-Girl destroying a whole room full of adults with guns – and talking smack with her dad – and what impressed me most is the rag-tag feel of the thing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0lwLB-xAVw]
These peeps don’t have any superpowers, but more than enough attitude to make up for it – and unlike some superhero films, which are more about the action than the characters, I think Kick-Ass will be more fun when the masks come off, and daddy’s little girl lights up the four-letter words. (See Techland’s top 10 characters of the decade)