Top 10 Anticipated Films of 2012

10. G.I. Joe: Retaliation (June 29th, 2012)
Director: Jon M. Chu
Writers: Rhett Reese/Paul Wernick
Starring: Channing Tatum, Dwayne Johnson, Bruce Willis, Arnold Vosloo, Ray Park, Byung-hun Lee, Ray Stevenson, RZA, Adrianne Palicki, Joseph Mazzello and Jonathan Pryce
Studio: Paramount Pictures




Say what you will about G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. One has to admit it was damned ambitious. It was also unbalanced, too heavily reliant on flashbacks and less true to the show and more of a “fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants” production. That didn’t stop it from being a worldwide sensation (maybe it was due to the disdainful delivery of the line, “Real American Heroes”). Forget for a minute that this is being directed by the same guy who brought us Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (in probably one of the most outrageous jumps from film to film on a resume). This is the second major feature film being written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick who introduced the world to Zombieland, one of my all-time favorite comedies. It breaks my heart to see them not continue with a sequel, but I’m glad to see they got to see the original concept for Zombieland, a TV series, finally come around. You’ll notice that most of Rise of Cobra’s cast was jettisoned – Damon Wayans, Rachel Nichols, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and oddly Dennis Quaid (I thought he was the best actor in the entire film). I was also surprised to see that they continued the storyline of the President being kidnapped and replaced by an evil doppelganger, but if it serves this film better, I say let them go for it. Whatever appeals Dwayne Johnson into inserting himself into popular action films’ sequels escapes me but seeing him along for the ride will be just fine with me. And from what I’ve seen in the trailer, Bruce Willis will be very exciting to see in the film cast as the original G.I. Joe. If the film can also handle the Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow rivalry better than Rise of Cobra, which would be an improvement. All I can say is I trust the writers, the cast seems just fine and I’m all for a better film.
NOTE: Paramount Pictures moved the film from June 2012 to March 29th, 2013. The delay gives time for a 3D post-conversion and reshoots that are said to involve Channing Tatum.

9. Wreck-It Ralph [3D] (November 2nd, 2012)
Director: Rich Moore
Starring the voices of: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jane Lynch and Jack McBrayer
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures

The last time Disney delved into the world of video games were the films Tron and Tron: Legacy. Both were adventurous but perhaps a bit too serious for their own good. With this film, Disney harkens back to the days of 8-bit video games in this parody of “Super Mario Bros.”, Wreck-It Ralph. The story is that video game bad guy Wreck-It Ralph (voiced by Reilly) is constantly angry when his good-guy nemesis Fix-It Felix (voiced by McBrayer) disrupts his sleep with his building construction. All Ralph wants is the glory and fame that Felix gets and not be hated. If he has to become a good guy in another game, why not? The film promises to have a depiction of various video game worlds and styles of animation from 8-bit to the full-on photo-realistic shooters of today. This is Walt Disney Feature Animation’s follow-up to Tangled, which excites me that this film about video games joins the hallowed ranks of such films as Snow White, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. I can’t wait to see a trailer.

8. Frankenweenie [3D] (October 5th, 2012)
Director: Tim Burton

Writer: John August
Starring the voices of: Winona Ryder, Martin Landau, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, Conchata Farrell, Christopher Lee, and Tom Kenny
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures

In 1984, a young Disney animator named Tim Burton made the leap to live-action short films with a little story he developed about a young boy named Victor Frankenstein (a bit on the nose, perhaps?) whose dog is killed in a tragic car accident, but reanimates the corpse of his beloved pet and causes chaos in the neighborhood. This black-and-white film was Frankenweenie and starred Daniel Stern and Shelley Duvall as Victor’s parents. Disney executives were puzzled by the film and the eccentric filmmaker was ejected from the Disney company until a film he produced and wrote the story for became huge overseas, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Burton retained his position as producer on another Disney production, the live-action/stop-motion fantasy James and the Giant Peach and afterwards, left the Disney Company for good. Until 2010, when Burton returned to give his spin on a classic Disney story – Alice in Wonderland – which ended up bringing the studio $1 billion in income. Apparently, one of the costs the Disney studio had to guarantee for Burton in exchange for directing Alice in Wonderland was to allow him to go back and remake Frankenweenie in black-and-white stop-motion. Disney green-lit the project and let Don Hahn, head of the Walt Disney Feature Animation group, oversee the project personally. The film features a veritable reunion of previously Burton-used actors (notably missing Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, their first film apart in 7 years). On a side note, one actor I would like to see reteam with Burton is Batman himself, Michael Keaton. Anyhow, I think this film will be quite interesting to see as the original Frankenweenie had a lot of heart and humor.

7. Hotel Transylvania [3D] (September 21st, 2012)
Director: Genndy Tartakovsky

Writers: Dan Hageman, David Feiss and Kevin Hageman

Starring the voices of: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg, Fran Drescher, David Spade, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon and Cee Lo Green
Studio: Sony Pictures Animation

Yes, I know the film looks like a reunion of actors from I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and Grown Ups. Might I direct your attention back to the director? If you don’t know who that is, Tartakovsky is most famous for creating the Cartoon Network shows “Dexter’s Laboratory” and “Samurai Jack” and overseeing the animation of the original “Star Wars: Clone Wars” series. He even was allowed to storyboard a War Machine/Iron Man at the World Expo battle sequence in Iron Man 2. For the longest time, he was attached to directing a sequel to the Jim Henson classic, The Dark Crystal, but was abandoned by the Henson Company. This will be his first feature-length directorial debut. The film centers around Dracula (voiced by Sandler) and his daughter (voiced by Gomez) running a “five-stake” hotel resort where all of Dracula’s friends – Frankenstein (voiced by James) and his Bride (voiced by Drescher); the Invisible Man (voiced by Spade); a family of werewolves (voiced by Buscemi and Shannon); and a Mummy (voiced by Green) – can all relax and live it up until a unsuspecting human guy (voiced by Samberg) stumbles onto them and falls in love with Dracula’s daughter. If that concept doesn’t sound appealing to you, I would advise to just wait for a trailer and allow Tartakovsky’s talents to shine through.

6. Django Unchained (December 25th, 2012)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Dennis Christopher and Tom Wopat
Studio: The Weinstein Company

That’s right! Six years after Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino is back! Who else but Tarantino would be crazy enough to have their film released eleven days after Peter Jackson’s 3D juggernaut The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey? This film is his take on a Western. Jamie Foxx plays Django, a former slave who was freed and became a bounty hunter. Now he has returned to the Mississippi plantation he once worked at to free his wife from the tyrannical reign by the brutal Calvin Candie (played by DiCaprio). The cast is full of Tarantino regulars – Waltz, Jackson – and great actors like DiCaprio (in his first role as a villain) and Tom Wopat (most famous as Luke Duke from “The Dukes of Hazzard”). I’m enthusiastic to see what Tarantino does with this film.

5. The Amazing Spider-Man [3D] [IMAX 3D] (July 3rd, 2012)
Director: Marc Webb
Writers: James Vanderbilt/Alvin Sargent
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Julianne Nicholson and C. Thomas Howell
Studio: Columbia Pictures





Ten years after Spider-Man’s first cinematic adventure comes this re-telling of his origins which most people complained was already told quite well in the first film, directed by Sam Raimi. However, this film appears to expand on more of Peter Parker’s years in high school and the mystery surrounding the disappearance of his parents. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man film spent fifty minutes on Peter Parker in high school and zero on his parents (albeit one brief mention of his father). Also, a pivotal character in Peter’s high school years, Gwen Stacy was only introduced in Spider-Man 3, when Peter is in college. After the critical drumming that Spider-Man 3 got, Raimi and his team set out to make a Spider-Man 4. I’ve read the outline that they came up with and man, was it bad. One of the main plot points was revealing that Mary Jane was really fathered by the Vulture (to have been played by John Malkovich). Reboot away, please! When I first heard that Andrew Garfield was going to play New York’s Wondrous Web-Slinger, I was a bit outraged because he was a British guy playing an American icon (slipping my mind of course that Christian Bale was British playing Batman and later Henry Cavill was British playing Superman). However, I was calmed later by two reasons: first, I learned that Garfield was indeed an American, having been born in Los Angeles and was simply raised in England and secondly, seeing his fantastic performance in David Fincher’s The Social Network. I can’t imagine how much pressure he’s got to be under having to take such an iconic role from a decent actor like Tobey Maguire, who will be forever identified with Spider-Man (he seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet outside of his role in the upcoming The Great Gatsby). I love Emma Stone. For real. On the outside, she is the living, breathing incarnation of Mary Jane Watson, even more so than Kirsten Dunst who could not bring herself to play the Mary Jane from the comics. However, for this film she plays Gwen Stacy (taking the role from her The Help co-star Bryce Dallas Howard). Hopefully she can still bring a sense of fun with her naturally blonde beauty. I don’t know much about Rhys Ifans, but the Lizard was the character that was hinted at in the Sam Raimi movies from a brief mention in Spider-Man to a one-armed portrayal in Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3. The late great Cliff Robertson had a great role as Uncle Ben in Spider-Man and gave a fantastic delivery of the famous line, “With great power comes great responsibility”. Having Martin Sheen come in surprised me because he is a quality actor and I wouldn’t have figured him for a superhero movie. I’m not quite convinced that Sally Field is really OLD enough to play Aunt May, but that’s beside the point. James Cromwell was severely underused as Captain George Stacy in Spider-Man 3 (really he’s in one scene). Denis Leary is a great actor and him leaving his show “Rescue Me” to make this film tells me his character’s death probably won’t happen in the first movie. All in all, Amazing Spider-Man has a lot of heat against it, but also has a lot of potential. There’s no question that the movie will be a box office hit.

4. Men in Black III [3D] (May 25th, 2012)
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Josh Brolin, Jermaine Clement, Emma Thompson, Nicole Scherizinger and Alice Eve
Studio: Columbia Pictures





Will Smith’s last two films in 2008, Seven Pounds and Hancock, were not well-received critically and only one (Hancock) was financially successful. In the four years since his film absence, he has gotten his son in a well-received remake of The Karate Kid and making his daughter into a pop star and in a new adaptation of Annie. Now he has returned to the black suit and the black shades of the Men in Black. Granted, Sonnenfeld hasn’t directed a film since 2006’s RV (he was busy show-running ABC’s “Pushing Daisies”). Putting together a new Men in Black film clearly wasn’t easy from the set reports of the actors often working without a finished script. The teaser shown recently certainly shows that Jones and Smith are clearly back in character and Brolin’s impersonation of Agent Kay is flawless. As a fan of the films, I’ll continue to hold out hope for it.

3. John Carter [3D] [IMAX 3D] (March 9th, 2012)
Director: Andrew Stanton
Writers: Andrew Stanton/Michael Chabon
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Thomas Hayden Church, Mark Strong
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures





This is another one of those films that most people I know don’t have much faith in. All I have to say is, “Trust in Andrew Stanton”. He’s made two fantastic animated movies – Finding Nemo and Wall•E – both of which won Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature. This is his first live-action film, and if the success of fellow Pixar alumni Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is any indication, I think people will be highly receptive. The film’s biggest obstacle will be trying to differentiate itself from popular science-fiction films like Avatar and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. What people don’t seem to realize is that is that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote “A Princess of Mars”, the first story to feature John Carter was written over 100 years ago! The cast seems to be made up of actors involved in Marvel movies: Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins both appeared in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Willem Dafoe and Thomas Hayden Church were both in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies and Mark Strong was in Kick-Ass (a graphic novel published in part by Marvel). I know a lot of people are also worried about giving a first-time director a budget of $200 million, which is very, very risky but if Stanton made a good film, it will all be worth it.

2. The Dark Knight Rises [IMAX] (July 20th, 2012)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Writers: Jonathan and Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Juno Temple, Josh Pence, Joey King and Liam Neeson
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures



I’m sure most people will be upset with me putting this film in second place and leaving out The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Prometheus. One reason it’s in second place is because this film features ONE superhero. The full-length theatrical trailer left me somewhat confused and wanting more, but that’s exactly what Christopher Nolan wants. This man is a true genius. The cast is fantastic and anticipation for this film has never been higher. I went to a New Years Eve party where someone had the audacity to ask me if I thought The Dark Knight Rises will be good. I angrily replied, “Does a bear $#*! in the woods?” He didn’t know what I meant. Sigh.

1. The Avengers [3D] (May 4th, 2012)
Director: Joss Whedon
Writer: Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Clark Gregg, Colbie Smulders, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Gwyneth Paltrow
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures/Marvel Studios





This is a film I’ve been waiting for since 2008. With one line delivered by Samuel L. Jackson playing his comic-book counterpart Nick Fury at the very end of Iron Man, “I’m here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative,” Marvel Studios launched the imaginations of a thousand fanboys like me everywhere. One bump in the road was losing The Incredible Hulk’s Edward Norton (who would’ve been great fun to see with this team) but I’m sure Mark Ruffalo will do just fine (he previously co-starred with Downey in David Fincher’s Zodiac). This is the first Marvel film that Walt Disney Pictures will be distributing (not publicly apparently, thanks to Paramount Pictures). Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth both gave fantastic performances as Captain America and Thor, in their respective films and I can’t wait to see more from them. Two time Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner rises from a brief post-production cameo in Thor to his full role as Hawkeye/Clint Barton. It’s always nice to see Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson who probably has the best dry comedy delivery in the business. For the first time in cinematic history, the Avengers will assemble and you can bet your ass I’ll be there opening day.

Honorable Mentions:

The Hunger Games (March 23rd, 2012)
Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (March 2nd, 2012)
Brave (June 22nd, 2012)
Ted (July 13th, 2012)
The Watch (July 27th, 2012)
Skyfall (October 26th, 2012)
Prometheus (June 8th, 2012)
Rise of the Guardians (November 11th, 2012)
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (December 14th, 2012)