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Friday, May 09, 2008
Summer Movies Take Over Cineplex
By David Germain
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Studio executives hope they've trained their audience well as the season of summer blockbusters arrives.
From May through mid-August, Hollywood will bank on the idea that there is at least one movie every week — and sometimes two — that you simply must see.
Summer features such box-office staples as Will Smith, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Jack Black, and brings back beloved characters such as Indiana Jones, Batman, Speed Racer, Carrie and her “Sex and the City” gal pals, the “Narnia” kids, the Incredible Hulk and two very different agent couples: paranormal troupers Mulder and Scully, and comic spies Maxwell Smart and Agent 99.
A look at the lineup:
MAY 9: Andy and Larry Wachowski turned virtual reality on its head with “The Matrix.” Now they follow their R-rated franchise with the family-friendly adventure “Speed Racer,” an adaptation of the animated show starring Emile Hirsch as the kid roaring along the roadways, Christina Ricci as his helicopter-flying girlfriend and Matthew Fox as mystery man Racer X.
MAY 16: Things sure can change in 1,300 years, as Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie learn when they go over the rainbow again in “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” the second installment in the fantasy franchise based on C.S. Lewis' books.
Only a short time has passed for the siblings in England, but centuries have gone by in Narnia, which now is under the bootheel of the tyrannical Telmarines and mean King Miraz. The Pevensies encounter a new ally — Caspian (Ben Barnes), the rightful heir to Narnia's throne — and are reacquainted with old buddy Aslan the lion, again voiced by Liam Neeson.
MAY 22: Cue the Indy fanfare. Henry Jones Jr. is cracking his whip again.
“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” reunites the dream team of Harrison Ford as the archaeologist-adventurer, director Steven Spielberg and creator-producer George Lucas.
Unlike film franchises that crank up the action and effects with each sequel, Spielberg, Lucas and Ford are offering an old-school Indy.
“We did everything exactly the way we did it before, so if you expect F-14s flying into freeways, it ain't gonna happen,” Lucas said.
The movie was partially filmed in New Mexico.
MAY 30: When we last saw “Sex and the City” stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon, their TV characters were settling down and seemingly leaving behind their randy ways.
The movie reunites the four with co-star Chris Noth as Mr. Big, the on-again, off-again beau of Parker's Carrie, with whom she finally wound up as the series ended four years ago.
While the movie maintains the show's cheeky humor and ribald conversation, it's not a sex romp but a story about women dealing with commitment, family and all the issues of growing older, Parker said.
JUNE 6: Adam Sandler's Zohan will do anything to stay out of the line of fire. Jack Black's Po is dying to get in on the action.
“You Don't Mess With the Zohan,” whose co-writers include Sandler and Judd Apatow (“Knocked Up”), stars the comedy king as an Israeli commando who pretends he's been killed so he can become a New York City hairdresser.
The animated action comedy “Kung Fu Panda” features Black voicing the tubby Po, a panda stuck working at his family's noodle shop when he's tapped to train as a martial arts master and battle an evil snow leopard threatening the land.
The voice cast includes Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and Seth Rogen.
JUNE 13: When we last saw Marvel Comics' big angry green guy, he was hopping around in the desert in Ang Lee's “Hulk,” a critical and commercial disappointment.
The Marvel gang went back to the drawing board for “The Incredible Hulk,” starring Edward Norton in a new take that the filmmakers say will channel both the comic books and the 1970s and '80s TV show starring Bill Bixby.
JUNE 20: Taking on the “Get Smart” character Maxwell Smart created by Don Adams, Steve Carell plays bumbling spy Max as a desk jockey promoted to field work, paired with veteran operative Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway).
Mike Myers is back in form in the title role of “The Love Guru,” starring next to Jessica Alba.
JUNE 27: “Finding Nemo” director Andrew Stanton now offers up “Wall-E,” the tale of a janitorial robot toiling away for centuries because no one remembered to turn him off after humanity trashes Earth to the point that the planet must be abandoned.
Here's Stanton's short take on the story: “The last robot on Earth crosses the galaxy for love.”
JULY 2: With such hits as “Independence Day” and “Men in Black,” Will Smith has owned the Fourth of July weekend.
He aims to dominate it again with “Hancock,” which co-stars Charlize Theron in the tale of a churlish superhero with real problems like the rest of us.
“It's the very authentic version of an alcoholic superhero,” Smith said. “You will scream laughing, then there's some dramatic turns that just leave your jaw dropping. Huge special effects. It is all things.”
JULY 11: Brendan Fraser finally offers scientific proof that there is an albino dinosaur at the Earth's core — and he does it in 3-D.
“Journey to the Center of the Earth” is a modern twist on Jules Verne's classic tale presented entirely in three-dimensional digital video that practically sets the characters and effects in the audience's lap.
Eddie Murphy stars as the leader of a group of tiny aliens scouting Earth because their own race is endangered.
JULY 18: Batman is back with “The Dark Knight,” reuniting star Christian Bale with director Christopher Nolan and pitting the soul-searching crimefighter against his greatest enemy, the Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger in his next-to-last role.
With great buzz on Ledger's frantic performance and his demonic makeup, the Joker is the corrupted flip-side of Batman, who lives by a strict code despite raging inner turmoil.
JULY 25: The basic story for “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” has been kicking around in writer-director Chris Carter's head since his paranormal TV series went off the air six years ago.
Carter reunites with stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson for the second big-screen adventure of Mulder and Scully, who spent years in the FBI chasing aliens and supernatural phenomena.
AUG. 1: After digging way down under with “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” Brendan Fraser comes up for air with “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” the third outing for the adventuresome family who, as he puts it, “by some bizarre coincidence just always encounters the undead.”
Maria Bello replaces Rachel Weisz as Fraser's British wife, the couple coming out of bored retirement to join their grown-up son on a dig in China, where they end up battling an ancient ruler (Jet Li) who springs back to life aiming to conquer the world.
AUG. 8: America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel and Blake Lively are back as the gal pals who like to share a particular hand-me-down in “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.”
Three years have passed, they've just finished their first year of college, and “we kind of come back together to realize everyone's growing in a lot of different directions,” Bledel said.
AUG. 15: What if pampered, hapless actors went off to make a Vietnam War movie and got caught in a real battle?
That's the idea behind co-writer, director and star Ben Stiller's “Tropic Thunder,” a comedy that features Robert Downey Jr. as a white actor portraying a black character with insanely serious devotion and Tom Cruise as a bald, raving studio boss with hilarious dance moves.
Copyright ©2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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