Prometheus
Director: Ridley Scott, ETA: June, 2012
Few recent films have been as masked in secrecy as ‘Prometheus’. Is it, as was originally mooted, a prequel to the ‘Alien’ series, focusing on that enormous fossilised navigator that John Hurt and co found in the original movie? Or is it, as now seems to be the case, a distantly connected but largely autonomous sci-fi adventure in which the aliens themselves may or may not play a role? The official synopsis of the film, which stars Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron and Time Out hero Michael Fassbender as the resident android, describes it as ‘a journey to the darkest corners of the universe’, which isn’t exactly giving much away. Either way, the prospect of Ridley’s return to sci-fi 30 years after ‘Blade Runner’ has us mightily intrigued.
Star Trek Sequel
Director: JJ Abrams, ETA: 2013
After the critical and financial success of JJ Abrams’s giddily thrilling ‘Star Trek’ reboot, it seemed likely that the promised sequel would see a warp-speed turnaround. But that hasn’t happened: two years on, and the film hasn’t even started shooting. All we know at this stage is that a script is in progress, Abrams has committed to direct, and that the film should be out before the end of 2012 – though that seems increasingly unlikely. When the film does finally arrive, expect more of what we got in the first one: square jaws, sharp dialogue, searing CGI, strong casting and plenty of sneaky references to original series – plus, very possibly, an appearance from everyone’s favourite seven-foot space psycho Khan.
Total Recall
Director: Len Wiseman, ETA: August, 2012
Hollywood’s annoying habit of tinkering with the classics comes full circle as they retool a film from a little over 20 years ago which was an action mainstay during the whole of the 1990s. Colin Farrell stars as the agent embroiled in a future war, but who can't quite figure out whose side he’s on. If you’re asking us directly whether Len ‘Underworld’ Wiseman will have the same delirious handle over the material (Philip K Dick’s ‘We Can Remember It For You Wholesale’) that Paul Verhoeven did all those years ago, then the answer is a straight no. Part of the joy of the original was its various scrungy latex effects and although Wiseman has said in an interview that CGI will be left to a minimum, it remains to be seen whether the operatic violence will make the transition. Looking at the early synopsis, Wiseman’s film has some key differences, the most obvious being that the tone is going to be a lot more serious, plus, it’s not going to be taking place on the Red Planet, putting the kibosh on the original film’s best line: ‘Get your ass to Mars!’.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Director: Peter Jackson, ETA: December 2012 and November 2013
Strictly speaking, this is two films: ‘An Unexpected Journey’, due on December 14 2012, and ‘There and Back Again’, due on November 13 2013. With shooting finally underway – check out Peter Jackson’s entertaining series of on-set blogs – it seems nothing can stand in the way of Bilbo and co. come next Christmas. The plot doesn’t really need repeating – homely meets gang of marauding burglars, havoc ensues – but the focus of discussion is still that bizarre, mismatched cast, which ranges from the sublime – Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee and Andy Serkis back on board, Stephen Fry and Benedict Cumberbatch join the team – to the ridiculous – moody Yellow Pages salesman James Nesbitt as Bofur, ex-Doctor Who Sylvester McCoy as Radagast the Brown and the inestimable Barry Humphries as the Great Goblin.
Frankenweenie
Director: Tim Burton, ETA: October 2012
Tim Burton has spent 2011 making two new films. The first is being shot in LA, a live action film starring Johnny Depp which (per early production stills) displays an uncanny resemblance to ‘The Addams Family’. The other is being shot in the UK, a stop-motion animation that’s a remake of his controversial first short made for (and shelved by) Disney in 1984, ‘Frankenweenie’. Having visited the set of the film, Time Out can confirm that all the immaculate craftsmanship that went in to films like ‘Corpse Bride’ and ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ remains in this feature-length retooling of a story about a young boy who discovers a way of bringing his dog, Sparky, back to life after he’s killed in a car accident. Considering the massive toil of making the film, it’s not due to his cinemas until the end of 2012, but what we can deduce from the snippets we’ve seen so far is that it looks like it could be Burton’s best in a very long time.
The Dark Knight Rises
Director: Christopher Nolan, ETA: July 2012
Director Christopher Nolan and his screenwriting brother Jonathan close the circle with the last in their globe-conquering series of Batman movies. Plot details remain sketchy, but we know that Anne Hathaway has joined the cast as Selina Kyle aka Catwoman, riding a pretty funky wide-wheeled motorbike, Marion Cotillard is to play potential new love interest Miranda Tate, Joseph Gordon Levitt has signed on as Gotham cop John Blake and eternally rising star Tom Hardy is also on board as musclebound psycho Bane. Tonally, expect more of the same none-more-black grimness of the last two movies. Nolan has vowed that this will be the last in his Batman cycle, but we have no doubt that in a dank cellar somewhere in Hollywood, a studio dogsbody is busily figuring out the character’s inevitable rebirth.
The Great Gatsby
Director: Baz Luhrmann, ETA: December 2012
This $125 million verson of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel – directed by ‘Romeo + Juliet’ and ‘Moulin Rouge’ director Baz Luhrmann – started shooting in Sydney in September 2010 with a cast including Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan. Maguire is playing Nick Carraway, a young man who moves to Long Island in 1922 and finds himself living next door to wealthy Jay Gatsby (DiCaprio). Mulligan plays Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s cousin who rekindles a relationship with Gatsby despite being married to Tom (Joel Edgerton). This being a Baz Luhrmann film, one expects a grandiose level of splendour and glamour from this adaptation, and Luhrmann will surely heavily indulge the look, sound and feel of New York City and Long Island in the jazz age. Luhrmann is shooting the film in 3D, so continuing the format’s reign at cinemas as it continues to spread from lowest-common-denominator blockbusters to the more upscale side of cinema.
Lincoln
Director: Steven Spielberg, ETA: December 2012
After a few years of (relative) inactivity, Steven Spielberg is restaking his claim as the Busiest Man in Showbiz by churning out three in a row: ‘Tintin’, ‘War Horse’ in January 2012, and this biopic of the great American president, due at the end of 2012 (and that’s without mentioning his upcoming sci-fi actioner ‘Robopocalypse’, set for a mid 2013 premiere). But don’t expect a sprawling, ‘Amistad’-style historical epic: rather than trying to cram an entire, hugely eventful life into a single movie, ‘Lincoln’ will focus on the president during the closing months of the Civil War – which also proved to be the last months of his life. Daniel Day Lewis has been dragged out of retirement to play the title role, while able support is provided by the likes of Joseph Gordon Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Jackie Earl Haley and some other, less important people with only two names.
Untitled Terrence Malick Film
Director: Terrence Malick, ETA: September 2012
There was a relatively long gap between ‘The New World’ and ‘The Tree of Life’, but now it seems that Terrence Malick has four new films on the go. He’s finished ‘The Burial’ (which may change its name), which stars Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz, Olga Kurylenko, Javier Bardem, Barry Pepper and Jessica Chastain. The story is said to feature Affleck as a writer in a loveless marriage with Kurylenko, and both husband and wife are looking for something more from their lives outside of their marriage. The three other projects that Malick has on the go are ‘Voyage of Time’, ‘Knight of Cups’ (starring Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett) and ‘Lawless’ (starring Bale, Blanchett and Ryan Gosling). ‘Voyage of Time’ has been described as a natural history film and is said to be an expansion on the ‘birth of the universe’ sequence in ‘The Tree of Life’. Malick was recently caught on camera filming Bale in the crowd at a Texas music festival for one of the new films.
Moonrise Kingdom
Director: Wes Anderson, ETA: Late 2012
A new Wes Anderson film is always a major event, not just because the string-bean fop director always manages to coax swathes of A-listers on to his sets, but also because he thinks nothing of flaunting his pleasingly gauche interests on screen. On a major high after the plasticine odyssey that was ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’, he returns with ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, a New England set tale that takes place in the 1960s about teen lovers who flee from their town and spark a huge game of hide and seek with the numerous worried denizens. The cast so far is probably his heaviest-hitting to date, and it includes Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Jason Schwarzman, and Bob Balaban. The film was shot over the summer of 2011, so a Cannes slot might be possible, but it’s perhaps more likely Anderson will head to Venice where he unveiled his previous live-action work, ‘The Darjeeling Limited’.
Django Unchained
Director: Quentin Tarantino, ETA: December 2012
Is Quentin Tarantino destined to become the new Woody Allen, endlessly churning out his own brand of idiosyncratic, star-studded action-comedies? His new film takes place in the time of American slavery, but, like its wartime predecessor ‘Inglourious Basterds’ will no doubt contain the same blend of endless, intricate dialogue scenes, sudden violence and in-jokey movie references as every other Tarantino movie. ‘Django Unchained’ was set to star Will Smith as the titular slave-turned-bounty hunter, but after he withdrew the role passed to Jamie Foxx. He joins Tarantino alumni Samuel L Jackson, Kurt Russell and Christoph Waltz, plus new boy Leonardo DiCaprio, for what could still be a return to form for the ultimate fanboy director.
The Three Stooges
Directors: Peter and Bobby Farrelly, ETA: April 2012
It’s been a long, long, long time since the Farrelly brothers have delivered a film of note, appearing to have been left wallowing in the 1990s comedy mire as rising stars such as Judd Apatow kicked dirt in the faces. Will this film version of the beloved American TV show be the hit that drags them back in to the big time after the chronic panty-raid antics of ‘Hall Pass’? The first thing to say is that its original cast would have made it a must see, with Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Jim Carrey at one point all set to get the slapstick game on. Yet, it all fell apart at the beginning of 2010. But now a new version is in the can with a markedly less inspiring line-up which includes Sean Hayes, Craig Bierko and Will Sasso…That Larry David and Jennifer Lynch are pencilled in as supporting cast members adds interest, but one suspects if this is a hit, it will be in the US rather than Europe where the Stooges are something of an unknown quantity.
The Amazing Spider-Man
Director: Marc Webb, ETA: July 2012
Most of us still have intricate memories of Sam Raimi’s trilogy of box-office busting Spider-Man films which he made between 2002 and 2007. One of the reasons they did so well were down to the small matter that they we really well written, performed and directed, and – though still cherished as a schlock horror maestro – they gave some serious heft to Raimi’s name. And so, with no ties to this new franchise whatsoever, Spidey gets another (potentially big money) runabout with Brit golden boy Andrew Garfield donning the red spandex bodysuit as your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman. Directed by Marc ‘(500) Days of Summer’ Webb and scripted by Steve Kloves (his first non ‘Harry Potter’-based gig for nearly a decade), it’s going to be very tough for people to overlook the fact that you can only flog Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s fantastical source material so many times each generation. Expectations, though, are understandably high, as the film has been pencilled in for the crucial US July 4 weekend in 2012.
Skyfall
Director: Sam Mendes, ETA: November 2012
Details of the new James Bond movie – ‘Skyfall’ – have been leaking gradually. What do we know? Most importantly, Daniel Craig will be back for more as 007, which is good news as, even if ‘Quantum of Solace’ was a disappointment for many, most Bond fans agree that Craig, who joined the party for ‘Casino Royale’, has brought new energy to the world’s oldest film franchise. We also know that the series’s third director in as many films: British film and theatre director Sam Mendes – best known for ‘American Beauty’ and ‘Revolutionary Road’ – takes over the reins from Marc Forster. Mendes and Craig have worked together before on ‘Road to Perdition’ and are known to have a good rapport. Known locations are Shanghai, Turkey and Duntrune Castle in Argyll, Scotland, while Judi Dench will join Bond newbies Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Albert Finney and Ralph Fiennes in the cast.
The Grandmasters
Director: Wong Kar-Wai, ETA : September 2012
Hong Kong maestro Wong Kar-Wai returns to the martial arts genre for the first time since 1994’s ‘Ashes of Time’ with this story about Ip Man, the martial arts master who trained Bruce Lee. Known for enjoying extended post-production periods and tinkering with his films right up to the point they’re screened (the film went into initial production in 2009), festival prognosticators have been mooting the arrival of ‘The Grandmasters’ for over a year now, but we’ve not heard or seen a peep. The few stills that have been released suggest that, true to form, it’s going to be another hyper-stylish affair, and Wong regular Tony Leung Chiu Wai has been cast in the lead role. Wong is a Cannes competition mainstay, so if he’s finished it, expect the film to drop in May 2012. Hopefully it’ll atone for his lacklustre American road movie, ‘My Blueberry Nights’ which he took there in 2007.
The Assassin
Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien, ETA: late 2012
Martial arts movies appear to be all the rage at the moment, especially those made by directors who don’t tend to dabble in genre cinema: Wong Kar-Wai’s doing one, Jia Zhang-ke’s doing one, and – perhaps most excitingly – Taiwanese new wave lynchpin Hou Hsiao-Hsien is taking the leap. It’s been a long time coming too, as his last film was 2007’s whimsical Paris-set drama, ‘Flight of the Red Balloon’, though word on the street is that Hou finally started shooting the rather epic film at the beginning of 2011. Reports suggest that the film is about a shape-shifting female assassin who is steely in her loyalty to family and clients. So those thinking it was a remake of the 1993 Bridget Fonda movie can rest easy. Still, one wonders how a director who made his name with films that were build out of long, slow takes and a fragile aesthetic sensibility will adapt to the tenets of the high-octane chop socky picture.
Seven Days
Director: Michael Winterbottom, ETA: late 2012
Busy British indie filmmaker Michael Winterbottom has been shooting this unusual project on and off since 2007 and hopes to have it finished for 2012. ‘Seven Days’ tells of the relationship between a husband (John Simm) who is jailed for drugs-smuggling and his wife (Shirley Henderson) who visits him regularly in prison. Winterbottom has written the film with his regular collaborator Laurence Coriat and has been filming it in spurts over the past few years in order to capture the ageing process of his characters more realistically. Winterbottom has worked with both Simm and Henderson several times on films such as ‘Wonderland’ and ‘24 Hour Party People’ so one imagines that he’ll be able to draw easy, natural performances from them once again. Let’s hope he soon finds time to finish it among his many other projects.
Berberian Sound Studio
Director: Peter Strickland, ETA: late 2012
Britain has a mad inventor in its midst, and his name is Peter Strickland. Although, on the evidence of his slow-burning debut, ‘Katalin Varga’, you wouldn’t know it, as the entire film was shot in Romania and with an entirely Romanian cast. His new film is a very different beast. Where that first film embraced the rustic settings and long takes of someone like Bela Tarr, this new film appears to be a homage to Dario Argento plus the cycle of paranoid thrillers coming out of America in the seventies (notably De Palma’s ‘Blow Up’ and Coppola’s ‘The Conversation’). ‘Berberbian Sound Studio’ stars the always reliable Toby Jones as a mild-mannered foley artist who’s asked if he would supply sounds for a violent Italian horror movie. But once he arrives on set, nothing is as it seems. From interviews with Strickland during shooting, it’s a film that revolves around a very intricate sound design, and if he can pull it off, this looks set to be a very interesting proposition indeed.
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