The Empire Big 2015 Movie Preview

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

BILLION DOLLAR BLOCKBUSTER CONTENDERS

These films, based on their predecessors’ performances and what we know of them so far, all stand a very good chance of making more than a billion at the worldwide box office. Two might even crack $2 billion. Here are the genetically-enhanced, super-intelligent monsters headed our way…

On April 3 comes the first giant thundering out of the gate, with Fast & Furious 7 – or simply Furious 7 if you’re in the US – racing onto screens with scant regard for rubber conservation or fuel efficiency. The latest instalment of the biggest pure action franchise in Hollywood has had a tragic road to the screen, forced to undergo major changes after the death of Paul Walker. But while we can expect more of an emotional punch this time by virtue of that real-life heartbreak, the insane car stunts and convoluted schemes all seem to be present and correct. Could this be a F&F film that genuinely makes us cry as well as crying with laughter? Just maybe.

April 24 sees The Avengers: Age Of Ultron arrive on screens to the triumphant cheers of an increasingly manic fanbase. But will our heroes triumph against Big Bad Ultron (James Spader)? Well, they almost certainly will in the end, but expect considerable suffering along the way and some major shake-ups for the Marvel universe – because when did Joss Whedon ever make life easy for his heroes? After the last film's $1.5bn dollar box-office success, the pressure is on to deliver and then some. Still, somehow we feel sure that this particular supergroup will rise the occasion and bring the hammer down hard on Ultron and his legions of robot baddies. Oh, and manage the ambiguous-at-best newcomers Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). Given that Marvel had a huge hit with even the “risky” Guardians Of The Galaxy, this should be a cake walk. That said, if they hurt Ruffa-Hulk, we riot.

According to Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World, out on June 12, we as a species are so blasé in the face of wonder that we would even become bored of dinosaurs. That means that anyone running a theme park whose central attraction is re-engineered dinosaurs will be under more and more pressure to up the ante, and that means that the oohs and the aahs will be followed by even more running and screaming as a super-dinosaur hunts unwary tourists through the park. The man who might be able to save the visitors? Chris Pratt, who could do no wrong in 2014. Could this role become the Indiana Jones to Starlord’s Han Solo? Given that he can carry off that leather vest, we think he might just do it. The fact that he appears able to train raptors and face down Bryce Dallas Howard’s super executive just reinforces that impression.

On October 23, the name on everyone’s lips will be the formerly top secret baddies of Spectre. The plot synopsis tells us that “a cryptic message” from James Bond’s past will lead him to uncover the evil organisation, while Ralph Fiennes’ M battles forces that want to shut down their service. We know that Léa Seydoux and Monica Bellucci will be the “Bond ladies”, with Dave Bautista as Mr Hinx and Christoph Waltz advertised as a character called Oberhauser – although speculation is running wild that he might be Blofeld. Or could it be Sherlock veteran Andrew Scott, who also joins the cast as someone called Denbigh and who has form in supervillainy. What is certain is that the returning Sam Mendes will be keen to surpass his own high bar for the series, and put Daniel Craig's Bond and his gorgeous suits through the wringer once more. Seems a shame really – we're pretty sure those are dry-clean only.

After 2014's drama-heavy but action-light instalment, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 on November 20 is the big finale we've all been waiting for, and should see the box-office surpass not just Mockingjay Part 1 but Catching Fire as well. Katniss (Lawrence) and her District 13 rebel allies launch their attack on the Capitol to unseat the tyrannical President Snow once and for all. But can Katniss really trust all her new friends? Her history suggests not, and you can certainly expect chaos both amid the fighting and in its aftermath. There will be a bigger role for Liam Hemsworth’s Gale and Josh Hutcherson’s recovering Peeta here, as Katniss makes a desperate final struggle for freedom, on top of the body count you might expect of all-out warfare.

Right now, the most popular sci-fi franchise in cinema history is leaving REM sleep and stirring slightly, as shown by that teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but it won’t be up and breakfasting until December 18. And then? We will see the original stars (Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill) hand over to a new generation (John Boyega, Daisy Ridley) and, we hope, a glorious rebirth for a series that has had a rough couple of decades. Abrams has been making all the right noises, emphasising practical effects, model work and prosthetics as much as possible over CGI, and hiring the incredible likes of Lupita Nyong’o, Oscar Isaac and Andy Serkis. The teaser, with the theme triumphantly blaring over glorious visuals of X-Wings in a Dambusters-style run and the Millenium Falcon dog-fighting over (what looks like) Tatooine, suggests he’s on the right track. Also, he has already given us that ball droid, and we’re very happy about that.

In Ghost Protocol, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt climbed the Burj Khalifa for kicks (OK, for plot reasons). We can only assume that Mission: Impossible 5 on December 26 will see him taking down bad guys on the top of Mount Everest, since otherwise he’s running out of high things to hang from while doing important spying work. Long-term Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie is stepping up to direct this time, with Ghost Protocol’s gang (Paula Patton, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames) joined by Alec Baldwin, Rebecca Ferguson and Sean Harris. We know that Cruise filmed a chase scene around central London, so it’s fair to guess that the capital is in for a bad day.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

ONLY TWO NEW SUPERHERO FRANCHISES?

Enjoy this calm before the storm of interlinked comic-book heroes to come. Avengers has sucked up much of the super-air this year, and DC’s run doesn’t kick off until 2016. Still, there are two others making their bow, and they are…

Ant-Man comes first, on July 17, and Marvel's problem child could yet prove to be a gonzo success. After all, it stars Paul Rudd as thief Scott Lang who steals a suit enabling the user to shrink to ant-size but gain strength proportionately. Then there’s a great supporting cast that includes Michael Douglas as original inventor Hank Pym, Hayley Atwell cropping up as Peggy Carter, Corey Stoll as the villainous Yellowjacket and Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne, Pym’s daughter and Lang’s love interest. While the directorial shuffle that saw Edgar Wright leave and Peyton Reed step in shook the confidence of many, we remain hopeful that a slightly anarchic spirit will survive to set this one apart.

It may not be a reboot that we expected to see quite so soon, but in any case here is a new Fantastic Four on August 6. With an interesting young cast – Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell and Michael B. Jordan are the titular quartet – and Chronicle director Josh Trank at the head of this superhero origin tale, we're still hoping for the best. The news that Toby Kebbell's Doctor Doom is now a hacker rather than the ruler of a small European state is a big change from the original, and one that comics fans greeted with outright disgust, but hey! It's actually slightly more believable when you think about it, so maybe knee-jerk horror was the wrong reaction.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

AWARDS BAIT

If an actor bares his or her soul and there is no one around with a statuette, did it even happen? Here, we look at the quality performances and prestige productions that will be vying it out for Oscars over the next two ceremonies.

The Theory Of Everything, on January 1, is a biopic of scientific genius Stephen Hawking. It sees Eddie Redmayne utterly transform himself to play the promising young student who receives a devastating diagnosis of motor neurone disease. Felicity Jones plays his wife Jane in an unusual love story that should feature in most awards season lists, in particular for the performances. After Interstellar, it’s also the second film in three months to feature discussion of the works of Kip Thorne: the man will be taking over a studio before you know it.

There is tragedy of a more martial kind in American Sniper on January 16, courtesy of director Clint Eastwood. Bradley Cooper stars as Navy SEAL sharp-shooter Chris Kyle, who returns from Iraq with over 150 kills. It’s based on an all-too-true story, which has Kyle struggling to adjust to everyday life but trying to help other soldiers through their own post-traumatic stress disorders. Sienna Miller plays his wife, and will hopefully get more to do than she does in Foxcatcher (see: Award Bait That Sounds Like A Superhero Movie).

Also on January 16, Testament Of Youth brings the early life of author Vera Brittain (Alicia Vikander) to the screen. It's 1914 England, and much of her generation – including her brother (Taron Egerton) and fiancé (Kit Harington) – head off to war, with Vera taking a job as a nurse to do her part. Given the Great War setting, it’d be a fair bet that not everyone makes it back in one piece, in a story that look at patriotism, pacificism and passion.

If it’s Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain you want, you need A Most Violent Year on January 23. The pair are an immigrant couple on the make in 1981 New York, willing to resort to extreme measures to protect their business. J.C. Chandor’s last two films were the revelatory Margin Call and the brilliant one-man show that was All Is Lost. Can he make it a debut hat-trick? He certainly chose a good cast to make the attempt.

On January 30, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, Inherent Vice, arrives in cinemas – reeling slightly as if hopped up on something illegal. Joaquin Phoenix stars as Doc Sportello, a private detective who tries to unravel a mystery for his ex (Katherine Waterstone) and discovers one of the more tangled webs in noir history, taking in white power thugs, millionaires, the Feds and dentists. Set in 1970, it’s a world still suffering from a hangover from the Sixties. Given that it’s based on a Thomas Pynchon novel and directed by the same Paul Thomas Anderson who made Boogie Nights, expect something complex, surreal and frequently funny.

Trash also arrives on January 30. Based on the Andy Mulligan novel, adapted by Richard Curtis and directed by Stephen Daldry, the easy sell on this is that it’s a sort of Brazilian Slumdog Millionaire. But there is no quiz show this time; instead, three young boys discover a wallet in the dump that holds a key (literally) to unravelling corruption in their city. Soon the authorities are after them and things look bleak, rather belying that cheery poster.

On February 6, festival darling Love Is Strange arrives in cinemas, starring Alfred Molina and John Lithgow as a couple who fall on hard times as Molina’s George is fired from his job when his religious employers learn of his marriage. The pair are forced to move, separately, in with friends as they hunt for a new place to live, and find their commitment tested by their new living circumstances.

Selma also arrives on February 6, telling the story of the Civil Rights struggle in 1960s America. David Oyelowo leads the cast as Martin Luther King Jr., but this is an ensemble piece rather than the story of one man’s struggle, and we are promised juicy roles too for Carmen Ejogo, Cuba Gooding Jr (it’s been a while since we said that about him), Tessa Thompson, Common, Tom Wilkinson and Oprah Winfrey.

If you’re a fan of less well-known true stories, Kill The Messenger on March 6 may be the one for you. Jeremy Renner produces and stars as Gary Webb, an investigative reporter who discovered that the CIA was arming Nicaraguan rebels and selling cocaine to pay for it. As a result, the Agency made him the target of a vicious smear campaign and set out to destroy his life. Spies, eh? Can’t trust ‘em. Director Michael Cuesta has spent time recently on Homeland, so he should get the right sense of sweaty paranoia and underdog struggle to bring Webb’s story to a wider audience.

One of the films that is getting attention for the Best Actress race in particular is Still Alice, also out on March 6. Starring Julianne Moore as a linguistics professor who starts losing words, it becomes a study of Alzheimer’s and the effects the disease has on sufferers and their families. Kristen Stewart and Kate Bosworth play her daughters with Alec Baldwin as her equally educated husband.

On April 3 we get to see the new Noah Baumbach film, While We're Young, which stars Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as a couple whose marriage is thrown into chaos when they make friends with a pair of twenty-somethings (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). Baumbach and Stiller made beautiful music together in Greenberg a couple of years ago, so we expect more realistic indie noodling here and great character work.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

Philippe Petit’s astonishing walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in 1974 has already been the subject of a great documentary, Man On Wire, but on October 2 the story will be dramatised in The Walk. Joseph Gordon-Levitt will play Petit for director Robert Zemeckis, with support from Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon and James Badge Dale. It should be one to watch for everyone except acrophobics.

2014 was a year without a Spielberg, but on October 9 next year we’ll get his, er, Untitled Cold War Spy Thriller (we’re hoping it will have a better title by then). It’s based on a true story adapted by the Coen Brothers and Matt Charman, which is a promising start if ever we heard one. Tom Hanks plays lawyer James Donovan, sent to negotiate the release of a pilot (Whiplash’s Austin Stowell) shot down over the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan and Alan Alda round out the principal cast, and we’ll be looking forward to see if Spielberg can bring the Cold War to life as effectively as he has done World War II.

Nicholas Hytner previously adapted Alan Bennett for the screen in The History Boys and The Madness Of King George. Now he’s returning to the playwright’s work with The Lady In The Van on November 13. Bennett wrote the story of an elderly woman (Maggie Smith), who initially moved the van where she lived into Bennett’s street and then, at his invitation, into his driveway, beginning a 15-year tenancy. Alex Jennings plays Bennett himself, with support from James Corden, Dominic Cooper, Jim Broadbent, Frances de la Tour and Roger Allam.

Why have one Tom Hanks film when you can have two? Towards the end of the year at a date TBC, we should get to see A Hologram For The King. Directed by Tom Tykwer and based on the book by Dave Eggers, this sure seems to have awards pedigree. Hanks plays Alan Clay, a near-unemployed American salesman pitching a new IT system to the Saudi Royal Family. The novel is a moody, meditative look at globalisation and the state of modern commerce, but it’s also witty and rather charming, and any film that casts Hanks as a down-on-his-luck American everyman has our vote.

Steven Soderbegh once said that if you can put Don Cheadle in your movie, put Don Cheadle in your movie. But since Cheadle is now making his directorial debut with Miles Ahead, due on a date TBC, it may soon be the case that if Don Cheadle can put you in his movie, get in his movie. The biopic of Miles Davis is a passion project for Cheadle, who will also play the jazz legend, and he’s recruited Ewan McGregor, Michael Stuhlbarg, Keith Stanfield and Emayatzy Corinealdi to co-star. Let’s hope the result is awesome, or Cheadle will be Kind Of Blue.

Sticking with the jazz biopic theme, we’re also due to be seeing a Nina Simone biopic sometime next year, called Nina. Zoe Saldana plays the star herself; David Oyelowo is Clifton Henderson who, at least in this telling, was a sometime lover of Simone (Simone’s daughter has disputed this account). This is the directorial debut for The Brave One writer Cynthia Mort; hopefully she has made a film that fits Simone’s towering musical legacy and gives Saldana something to do other than kick ass (which she does beautifully, but everyone needs to mix it up).

Photo: Mary McCartney

It’s a little known fact that all the actors to play Professor X and Magneto must also play Macbeth, whether onscreen or onstage. In 2015, at a date TBC, it’s Michael Fassbender’s turn. Marion Cotillard will be Macbeth's lady wife, while Snowtown’s Justin Kurzel is directing. And is that a dagger you see before you? No, it’s a supporting cast that includes Paddy Considine, David Thewlis, Sean Harris and Elizabeth Debicki. The setting is more thoroughly medieval than we’ve seen before in a play that has been adapted to the screen surprisingly rarely, so lay on, Kurzel, lay on.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

AWARDS BAIT THAT SOUNDS LIKE IT’S A SUPERHERO MOVIE

A surprising number of prestige projects this year seem to be masquerading as superhero films, judging by their titles. But don’t be fooled! These are serious films dealing with big issues.

If you think film should be a little more like jazz, then Birdman, out on January 1, is the motion picture for you. Michael Keaton plays the former star of a superhero franchise, attempting a career revival with a Broadway stage production. But under pressure from family (Emma Stone) and cast (Edward Norton, Noami Watts), cracks in his psyche begin to show and Birdman, his erstwhile character, returns to haunt him. Filmed fluidly, as if in a single take, this is a dizzying, fascinating look inside a fragile ego thanks to director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Gravity cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki.

Based on a true story, Foxcatcher on January 9 sees millionaire heir John DuPont (Steve Carell) recruit two Olympic gold-medal winning wrestlers to his personal team. But DuPont's obsessive need for control and younger brother Mark Schultz's (Channing Tatum) quest for independence set the stage for a tragic conclusion that is far more upsetting than Carell's fake nose. Watch it for the great performances by all three leads – the third is Mark Ruffalo – and try to figure out what the deal is with wrestling, exactly.

A sort of Full Metal Jacket for jazz percussionists, January 16’s Whiplash sees music student and would-be star drummer Andrew (Miles Teller) put through hell by driven band leader Fletcher (J.K. Simmons). Teller and Simmons are both on incredible form in a film that establishes two compelling characters and then fires them at one another at full speed. 29-year-old director Damien Chazelle had made effectively creepy films before with the likes of Grand Piano, but this is dramatic on a whole other level.

Based on the memoir by Cheryl Strayed, Wild is the story of her 1000 mile trek along the Pacific Crest Trail and the forces that led her to it. There has been Oscar buzz for Witherspoon here, who turns in a performance that is more raw than most we have seen from her, and the scenery is, as you'd expect, stunning. One warning though: you may get sore feet just watching this, so make sure that you have your boots laced up tight. That arrives on January 16.

Even though Ricki And The Flash is a summer release on July 3, the presence of Meryl Streep makes this automatically awards bait. The fact that Diablo Cody wrote the script, Jonathan Demme is directing and Streep’s daughter Mamie Gummer co-stars just confirms the impression, with a story about an aging rock star trying to reconnect with her children. Still sounds like a DC cartoon though, or a spin-off to the new Flash TV show.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

FILMS THAT SOUND LIKE WESTERNS BUT AREN'T (AND ONE THAT IS)

Westerns are not back this year to any great degree, but titles that seem ripped straight out of a Western decidedly are. Don’t believe us? Here's the evidence…

January 30 sees the release of Son Of A Gun, starring Ewan McGregor as a con who takes younger criminal JR (Brenton Thwaites) under his wing in prison but demands help in breaking free as a condition of his protection. Oh, and then there’s the small matter of a gold heist to plan, until JR becomes unsure whether he can trust his old mentor or not. Probably not, obviously; the man’s a hardened criminal. This has a fair amount of positive buzz behind it, and promises a more action-packed take on the set-up for the brilliant likes of Starred Up and A Prophet.

The Gunman comes next, on February 20, and sees Sean Penn star as a spy who has to clear his name after the organisation he used to work for goes after him in a big way. We could have told them that you should never, ever target ex-assassin types, but they never ask. Given that this is a Pierre Morel film (Taken, The Transporter), expect this to be considerably more explosive than the average Sean Penn film, and look out for an astonishingly talented supporting cast that includes Idris Elba, Ray Winstone, Javier Bardem and Mark Rylance.

Also on February 20 but at the slightly more cerebral end of the spectrum, Michael Mann’s Blackhat sees Chris Hemsworth as an imprisoned hacker brought in by the government to investigate a destructive cyber-attack on international financial markets – with even bigger targets to come. The trailer hints at lots of action amid shots of computer interiors lighting up, with Mann adding some dashes of red to his signature blue for a moody real-world feel. Support comes from Viola Davis, looking harried, and Wei Tang as Hemsworth’s less brawny but more glamorous partner. With cyber-warfare a growing fear, let’s hope that Mann can make this one compelling without giving any real-life blackhats any ideas.

April 10 sees the latest Nicholas Sparks film, The Longest Ride, arrive. As you’d expect by now, there are two gorgeous young people in love but living on different sides of the tracks: college student Sophia (Britt Robertson) and cowboy Luke (Scott Eastwood). They’re trapped due to a car accident with elderly art collector Ira (Alan Alda), who flashes back to his past as a young man (Jack Huston) and his love Ruth (Oona Chaplin). Expect mushiness and someone to die at the end.

You are reminded, at a date TBC, that you Don't Mess With Texas, since it’s an entire state and they could probably beat you up. In this case, it’s also the story of a police officer (Reese Witherspoon) who goes on the run through the titular state with the wife of a drug dealer, played by Sofia Vergara. This one is hard to call: director Anne Fletcher’s last road movie was the disappointing The Guilt Trip, but she’s made effective studio comedies before with 27 Dresses and The Proposal, so this could be quite a big hit.

What’s that? You want a real Western already? OK then, how about Jane Got A Gun on September 25, which sees Natalie Portman’s Jane turning to her ex, Dan (Joel Edgerton), for help when her husband Bill (Noah Emmerich) returns home riddled with bullets thanks to a gang led by Ewan McGregor as John Bishop. After considerable trouble in pre-production that saw Lynne Ramsay leave the project and Gavin O’Connor (Warrior) step in, with Jude Law and Bradley Cooper also coming and going, we hope that the final product makes all the effort worthwhile.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

DRAMA, THRILLERS AND HISTORY

These are films for grown-ups: films with twisty plots, compelling characters, corsets or some combination of all three. Sink your teeth in the following...

Jake Gyllenhaal’s on a roll. He was excellent in Prisoners, better still in Nightcrawler and now we’re going to see him in two roles for Enemy on January 2. Another film with Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve, this sees Gyllenhaal playing a man called Adam, who begins to stalk his double, Anthony. This has been around since 2013, so it’s somewhat delayed, but it’s received near-universal acclaim at festivals and screenings to date. It may be just a little weird for all tastes, however, so don’t go in expecting your typical thriller.

On January 23, Mark Wahlberg stars in The Gambler for director Rupert Wyatt, a remake of the 1974 film starring James Caan. Wahlberg plays Jim Bennett, a literature professor by day and high-stakes gambler by night. As you might expect, that career pairing goes horribly wrong when loan sharks come after him and an affair with one of his students (Brie Larson) threatens to come to light. This also stars John Goodman, Jessica Lange and Michael K. Williams – but the early word is that this is all about Wahlberg’s performance, which may be a career best.

On February 27 Will Smith and Margot Robbie are getting their con on in Focus. Smith’s a con man who teaches young Jess (Robbie) everything he knows – before deciding that he’s getting too close to her and breaking it off. Years later, he’s planning a major scam on a billionaire race car owner (Rodrigo Santoro) when Jess reappears and throws his plans for a loop. Expect double-, triple- and quadruple-crosses if we know this genre, and lots of really beautiful people swanning around looking glamorous.

Glamour not your thing? Then In The Heart Of The Sea on March 13 might be the antidote. Chris Hemsworth leads a sweaty, desperate group in this true-life story of whaling ship the Essex, sunk by an (understandably) angry whale in 1820. The surviving crew drifted in a lifeboat and were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive. Ick. Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw, Tom Holland, Benjamin Walker and Michelle Fairley round out the cast, and Ron Howard is directing a film that will ensure you never want to go in the water again.

Speaking of water (smooth segue, huh?) Russell Crowe is making his directorial debut with The Water Diviner on April 3. He also stars as Connor, an Australian farmer who travels to Turkey in 1919 to look for his three sons, who went missing during the Battle of Gallipoli in World War I. That disastrous campaign remains an emotive subject, especially in Australia and New Zealand, so he should be able to tug the heart strings. Can he also establish himself as a director? We would never dare bet against him.

On April 17 the film adaptation of bestseller Child 44 arrives, set in 1960s Moscow and starring Tom Hardy as a policeman investigating a series of child murders. His task is complicated by the fact that crime is officially impossible in the Communist system, so that his own superiors begin to turn against him when he suggests that there might be a problem here. Noomi Rapace plays his wife, and there are roles for Gary Oldman, Joel Kinnaman, Jason Clarke, Vincent Cassel, Dev Patel, Tara Fitzgerald, Charles Dance and Paddy Considine, which is a bit of an international dream team. Brace yourself for snow, Communism and twists aplenty.

Also on April 17, Alan Rickman’s directorial effort A Little Chaos arrives, starring Kate Winslet as a gardener at the court of Louis XIV (Rickman himself). Matthias Schoenaerts is Louis’ real-life gardener Le Notre, who is at first contemptuous of this new arrival but soon won over by her modern style. The bad news is that he’s married to Helen McCrory, so it definitely isn’t going in any romantic direction, OK? We mean it!

You wait ages for a Matthias Schoenaerts film (right? Just us?) and then two come along at once. Far From The Madding Crowd follows A Little Chaos on May 1, and the Thomas Hardy adaptation stars Carey Mulligan as the proud Bathsheba Everdene (no relation to Katniss) and Schoenaerts as Gabriel Oak, one of her three suitors. The other two are William Boldwood (Michael Sheen) and Sgt. Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge). This means corsets, astonishingly poor romantic choices and lots of sheep farming in this film from Danish director Thomas Vinterberg.

There’s nothing like a catchy title, and Untitled Cameron Crowe Project, due on June 19, currently has nothing like a catchy title. Still, that should change in the next few months. What we do know is that the Hawaii-set tale sees Bradley Cooper playing a weapons contractor who everyone dislikes. Sent to the island to launch a new spy satellite, he tries to reconnect with his lost love Tracy (Rachel McAdams) but finds himself growing close to tough pilot Allison Ng (Emma Stone) instead. Bill Murray, Alec Baldwin, Danny McBride, John Krasinski and Jay Baruchel round out the cast.

On September 11, we’ll be marching in support of votes for women as Suffragette debuts. Carey Mulligan stars as a young campaigner for equal rights, as an increasingly brutal state reaction drives the movement underground. Meryl freakin’ Streep, Romola Garai, Anne-Marie Duff and Helena Bonham Carter are also flying the flag, while Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw and Samuel West hold the male end up.

Then on September 25, Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Depp play brothers in what is currently known as Untitled Whitey Bulger Film. Depp plays the titular Whitey, a notorious gangster turned FBI informant who used the Bureau to take down his rivals. Cumberbatch is his respectable state senator brother – which has got to make for some awkward family gatherings. Scott Cooper will be aiming for a return to Crazy Heart form with this, after the disappointing Out Of The Furnace. He certainly has the cast for it, with Kevin Bacon, Juno Temple, Adam Scott, Corey Stoll, Joel Edgerton and Sienna Miller all aboard.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

CLASSY HORROR

We’re focusing this year on the elegant end of the horror spectrum, the films that promise to deliver style as well as scares.

Following the impressive success of the original Daniel Radcliffe starring horror, The Woman In Black: Angel Of Death on January 1 sees Phoebe Fox's Eve and Helen McCrory's Mrs Hogg bring a group of refugee children to Eel Marsh House during World War II. That’s a decision that has to rank up there among the worst of all time; a bigger blunder than starting a land war in Asia. As you'd expect, the resident murderous spectre doesn't take kindly to these new visitors and soon Mrs Hogg and Eve are struggling to keep their young charges alive. We advise against watching this near the door of a cinema where people might lurk in the darkness for a moment before heading to their seat. It makes it a little too interactive.

In a year crammed with horror sequels (there are new instalments for Amityville, Sinister, Friday the 13th and Paranormal Activity too), one of the more intriguing is Insidious: Chapter 3, out on June 5. Leigh Whannell will be making his directorial debut as well as writing this time and appearing as supernatural investigator Specs, but the focus will be on a new family led by Dermot Mulroney. Still, creeps and scares and Wheezing Demons are still very much present and correct, so don’t get comfortable just yet.

Next we have Victor Frankenstein on October 2, which promises a slightly unusual take on the story of the scientist, his creation and his sidekick Igor. James McAvoy plays Frankenstein himself, with Daniel Radcliffe as his less-than-usually-grotesque friend and assistant, who also narrates the tale. Jessica Brown-Findlay plays love interest Lorelei, with Sherlock’s Andrew Scott and Mark Gatiss also aboard. Whether this will be horror, comedy or something inbetween remains to be seen – according to what Radcliffe told us when he came in for the podcast last year, it’s riffing on pop culture Frankenstein tropes as well as telling its own story.

On October 16 Guillermo del Toro gets creepy on Crimson Peak, with Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, Mia Wasikowska, Doug Jones, Burn Gorman and Jim Beaver along for the terror. All we know so far is that Wasikowska plays a young author who discovers that her new hubby, Tom Hiddleston’s aristocratic Sir Thomas Sharp, is not all he appears in this 19th century tale. Chastain plays Sharp’s sister, with Charlie Hunnam as a taciturn doctor who presumably hides a badge saying “hero” under his coat somewhere. We’re told it’s a ghost story as well as a gothic romance, and it certainly sounds like it has a mix of Jane Eyre and Rebecca with a dash of the Del Toro-produced Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

ZOMBIES!

You know what’s scary? Undead monsters who long to snack on your brain. And yet all three of this year’s big zombie efforts play the concept – on some level at least – for laughs. Take a look…

First up is Scouts Vs Zombies on October 30, which is pretty much what it sounds like. Three scouts, led by Mud’s Tye Sheridan, have to save their town from a zombie apocalypse. There is comedy support from David Koechner and Cloris Leachman. Let’s hope, for the sake of our teen heroes, that we’ll soon be adding “toggles” to the list of things capable of permanently incapacitating the walking dead alongside axes, shotguns, cricket bats and vinyl.

On November 6 we will have our chance to see Kitchen Sink. That might sound like a Mike Leigh drama, but in fact it refers more to the "everything but the kitchen sink" nature of this one. It’s set in a town where vampires, humans and zombies co-exist peacefully – until one day something sets everyone at one another’s throats. As with Scouts above, three teens have to sort everything out. Judging by the cast, the emphasis will be on laughs though; the supporting line-up boasts Denis Leary, Bob Odenkirk, Patton Oswalt, Joan Cusack and Keegan-Michael Key, even if it’s Ed Westwick and Vanessa Hudgens in the leads.

At a date still TBC, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies will bring Jane Austen’s classic tale of romance and manners to life, now with added ambulatory corpses. The Bennet sisters and Mr Darcy will be using kung-fu and karate to see off the scourge, and from what we’ve seen they’re going to look good doing it. Lily James – no stranger to corsets after her time on Cinderella and in Downton Abbey – will be Lizzie Bennet, while Sam Riley is brooding away as Mr Darcy. Igby Goes Down’s Burr Steers is directing, and we’re expecting this to be better than the book. The Seth Graham Smith book, anyway; the chances of it surpassing Austen herself are a little slimmer.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

SCIENCE FICTION

This is a year of big meaty sci-fi even before we get to Star Wars: The Force Awakens in December. Check out the talent lined up…

Novelist and screenwriter (Sunshine, Dredd) Alex Garland makes his own directorial debut with Ex Machina on January 23 with this futuristic twist on Pygmalion. Domhnall Gleeson plays a young tech worker given a chance to spend a week with his company's secretive, charismatic owner (Oscar Isaac) - and, as it turns out, to meet the latter's creation, Ava (Alicia Vikander), a robot who may pass the Turing test for artificial intelligence. It's fair to say that things will not go to plan for any of them in a sci-fi chamber piece.

Channing Tatum plays a genetically-engineered albino warrior with wolf DNA in Jupiter Ascending on February 6. If you need more than that to convince you to see this, we don't even know what's wrong with you. But OK, fine: it also features Mila Kunis as a perennially unlucky cleaner who discovers a destiny that could make her queen of the galaxy. And it's from the sometimes barmy but never boring Wachowskis, with support from Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Douglas Booth and Terry Gilliam – just in case you were worried it might not be sufficiently surreal.

Monsters: Dark Continent is the follow-up to Gareth Edwards’ breakthrough film, arriving on February 27. The “infected zones” occupied by the alien monsters who crashed to Earth have now spread worldwide, and in the Middle East one of the alien zones meets a new insurgency. The US Army recruits new troops to meet the twin threat, and this story sees a squad of the luckless GIs stuck in extraordinarily hostile territory.

The one trailer we've seen so far makes Chappie, out on March 6, look like a Short Circuit remake, with an innocent robot caught up in a military hunt. But there are solid rumours around that there is a good bit more to it than that, and that this could be a return to District 9 form for Blomkamp and regular lead Copley after the good-but-not-great Elysium. Hugh Jackman leads the opposition to young robot Chappie, with Dev Patel as his surrogate father and Sigourney Weaver also in the mix.

Tomorrowland, on May 22, aims to do for science what Harry Potter did for magic, except instead of broomsticks there are jetpacks. Newcomer Britt Robertson plays Casey Newton, a troubled youngster given a glimpse of the titular land of wonder. She teams up with former boy inventor Frank Walker (George Clooney) to find a way back there. And that’s about all we know, because Damon Lindelof is keeping schtum as ever. Look out, though, for Hugh Laurie, Keegan-Michael Key, Kathryn Hahn and Judy Greer in the cast. And jetpacks!

The synopsis of Terminator Genisys, due July 3, suggests that it is a reboot/reinvention that will raise some eyebrows, with its concept being that a T-800 went back in time and raised Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) from childhood to protect her saviour son. But the first trailer showed Clarke on fierce form, with Jai Courtenay stuck as the damsel in distress role instead, and at least it's not another tired retread of the same ground, right? Alan Taylor did great work with Thor: The Dark World last year, so he has proven his sci-fi chops once already, and Jason Clarke should make an interesting John Connor. Still, an unstoppable killing machine called Pops? That may take a little getting used to.

From Pops to Pixels on August 21, as an alien invasion threatens the Earth. The aliens have misread old video game signals as a declaration of war, and modelled their forces on those characters. The US President (Kevin James) therefore calls his old friend and former game champ Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler) in to stop the invasion, with the help of Josh Gad and Peter Dinklage. We’re hoping for a King Of Kong meets Independence Day vibe. Look out too for Michelle Monaghan, Jane Krakowshi and Brian Cox.

Ridley Scott doesn’t hang about - Exodus: Gods And Kings may just have arrived, but he's already working on The Martian, due November 27 next year. Matt Damon will play an astronaut stranded on the red planet when his crew leaves, struggling to find a way to survive. This one has arguably the best cast of the whole year, also boasting Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean, Donald Glover, Sebastian Stan, Michael Peña and Aksel Hennie. We just hope that those attempting a rescue mission beware Damon’s mental state when they get there.

Then there’s Ben Wheatley’s High Rise to come on a date TBC, based on the novel by J.G. Ballard. Tom Hiddleston stars as the young doctor who moves into a self-contained building and takes up with Charlotte (Sienna Miller), the aide to the building’s architect Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons). But documentary maker Wilder (Luke Evans) is convinced that something is rotten in the state of the high-rise, and class conflict eventually breaks out, disrupting the cosy Hollow Crown reunion between Hiddleston and Irons. Wheatley hasn’t put a foot wrong yet, so we’re hyped to see this.

Finally in the sci-fi, release-date-TBC category is the new film from Like Crazy's Drake Doremus, Equals. Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult’s characters live in a future utopia where emotion has been eradicated, except for a select few infected with a disease that makes them outcasts. Hoult is infected and rejected from polite society, and discovers that his co-worker – played by Stewart – is also emotional and hiding her condition. Obviously, Empire’s resident Equilibrium fans are all aflutter about this one, but no matter how much we examine the synopsis, we’re still unable to find any mention of a gun-kata. Perhaps a kata-free indie romance will work just as well.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

COMEDY

Alright then Hollywood: make us laugh. We dare you.

On January 23 Johnny Depp stars in Mortdecai, based on the series by Kyril Bonfiglioli. He’s a dissolute art dealer called Charlie Mortdecai, kept – just – out of trouble thanks to his manservant Jock Strapp (Paul Bettany). In this story, he’s trying to recover a stolen painting that may also hold the key to a hidden trove of Nazi gold. Gwyneth Paltrow plays his wife, and he’ll be tangling with Ewan McGregor, Jeff Goldblum, Olivia Munn, Aubrey Plaza and Oliver Platt. At least we know from the trailer that Depp will be displaying magnificent sneering abilities, and we’re utterly certain it will be funnier than the last Depp/Koepp collaboration, the scary Secret Window.

But soft! What light from yonder February 20 breaks? It is Bill, and the Yonderland gang are the sun (this metaphor may have broken down somewhat). In a comedy that should end the authorship question once and for all, this explains what William Shakespeare got up to during his “lost years” before he became established as a playwright. It turns out that he was busy foiling plots to blow up Elizabeth I (Helen McCrory), which really does prove that the pen is mightier than the sword.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel opens on February 27 and promises more classically-trained British actors strutting their stuff in the Indian sunshine. Hotelier Sonny (Dev Patel) is trying to simultaneously plan his wedding to Sunaina (Tina Desai) and expand his hotel empire. Luckily he has Maggie Smith’s Muriel to keep things on track, while guests including Judi Dench and Bill Nighy settle into their new lives and find work in Jaipur. The first Exotic film was a breakout hit, and made over $100m worldwide; this one should appeal to the same audience (your mum; your granny; yourself, when no one is around to see).

On March 20, Chris Rock presents his latest film as writer, director and star, Top Five. Rock plays a comedian turned film star who’s trying to switch his career in a more serious direction while also planning his wedding to a reality star (Gabrielle Union). An interview with a sharp, witty journalist (Rosario Dawson) challenges him on his priorities. We like to think she’s modelled on us. This has already been acclaimed at Toronto; if it’s half as smart as the interviews Rock has been giving lately, it’ll be the most insightful comedy of next year.

A millionaire about to go to prison for fraud turns to a hardened thug to toughen him up in Get Hard on March 27. Will Ferrell’s the convicted criminal, with Kevin Hart as his tutor in the fine art of looking like a hard bastard. The film landed an R-rating in the US, which listed “pervasive sexual content and language” and “graphic nudity” in its reasoning, so even watching it should toughen us up.


On June 19, fans of Entourage will finally get to catch up with Vince Chase (Adrien Grenier) and company six months after we last saw them. We know that Liam Neeson, Tom Brady and, er, Piers Morgan will be appearing as themselves alongside the main gang, while Billy Bob Thornton, Haley Joel Osment and Martin Landau play other characters. Everything else remains under wraps, but we bet it will delight fans and irritate haters.

Ted 2 opens on July 10, with more foul-mouthed shenanigans from the teddy bear who never grew all the way up in an inevitable sequel to the big success of the first. Will this resurrect another cult star of the 1980s? Will they hit the same jokes over again with a slightly new twist? Quite possibly, but as long as it’s funny, who cares? This one also features Liam Neeson, in his second Seth MacFarlane film after A Million Ways To Die In The West. Perhaps this one sees his posterior treated with a little more respect.

Brace yourselves on July 24 for Grimsby, the (presumably) offensive new film from Sacha Baron Cohen. This time, however, Louis Leterrier is directing what we’re guessing is a higher-octane affair than usual from the comedian. Mark Strong plays a superspy forced to team up with his football hooligan brother (Baron Cohen) in the titular town – a premise that has already attracted criticism from the good residents of Grimsby itself. Will this be more Borat or The Dictator? We’re hoping for the former, and incidentally looking forward to seeing Strong in an out-and-out comedy.

Things get a little more ab-solutely ab-ulous on July 31, when Magic Mike XXL arrives. Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer and Joe Manganiello play strippers on tour, with Matthew McConaughey and Alex Pettyfer missing in action. There are a few more ladies in the cast this time, with Elizabeth Banks, Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Andie MacDowell all signed up. Gregory Jacobs is directing, but given that Steven Soderbergh is on set as producer, DP and editor, we feel like he’ll still have some input.

Despite coming out on November 13, Vacation is a reboot / sequel to the first of Chevy Chase’s family disaster movies and not the Christmas-themed one. Ed Helms is Rusty Griswold, now with a family of his own and determined to lead them on the perfect cross-country trip. Chase and Beverley D’Angelo’s Ellen Griswold appear as his parents, Christian Applegate is his wife, and Leslie Mann is Rusty’s sister Audrey, who’s married to Chris Hemsworth’s anchorman Stone Crandall (great name). Think of it as Griswolds: The Next Generation. Or maybe Griswolds: Voyager, given the long journey. Probably not Griswolds: Deep Space Nine, anyway.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

THE POTENTIALLY TERRIBLE, POTENTIALLY HUGE BONKBUSTER ADAPTATION

There could be only one. Although if movie tickets sell as well as the book did, there will undoubtedly be more…

Yes, 50 Shades Of Grey arrives on February 13. The astonishingly successful bonkbuster will follow a wealth of teasing posters and trailers, which we suppose is thematically appropriate. After all, romantic lead Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), drives women mad by withholding his affections, just like the film. Specifically, he gets under the skin of Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), who falls for him but runs into the minor snag that he insists on his girlfriends signing a contract to become submissives in a domination relationship. So it’s not your average rom-com or, indeed, much of a com at all. The film will have to overcome the book's near total lack of plot, and the fact that most of the character development comes during sex. Given how much we will undoubtedly be seeing and hearing about this by release, we hope that director Sam Taylor-Johnson has made something that transcends its origins.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

BALLS-OUT ACTION

Sometimes, we all need to watch people running around waving guns in the air. Sometimes, no matter how much you admire the Dardennes Brothers or Mike Leigh, there’s a guilty pleasure to be had watching something a little more explodey…

Liam Neeson has a particular set of skills that make him a nightmare for anyone hoping for an end to the Taken franchise. Specifically, they ensure that his Bryan Mills keeps the films watchable, and we hope that on January 8 the release of Taken 3 will confirm that. This one appears to be a riff on The Fugitive, with Mills' wife (Famke Janssen) - with whom he has finally reconciled - found murdered in his apartment. Someone just made a really bad decision. We predict that there will be a 12A-level of blood, and some growly threats. Neeson will also, incidentally, be getting his action on in Run All Night, due sometime in April.

The last time Matthew Vaughn adapted a Mark Millar comic, the result was the balls-to-the-wall Kick-Ass. Their new collaboration, Kingsman: The Secret Service on January 29, aims to give the spy genre a similar kick in the goolies, with Colin Firth's gentleman spy taking hoodie Taron Egerton under his wing while also unravelling a conspiracy masterminded by megalomaniac Valentine (Jackson). Given that Bond is fighting sensible villains these days, it's good to see that someone is still committed to taking down crazed bad guys – albeit still while dressed in Saville Row’s finest work.

Mad Max: Fury Road arrives on May 15, long-delayed but longer-awaited. Director George Miller’s return to the series that made his name sees Tom Hardy step into the role of post-apocalyptic cop Max Rockatansky, still stuck in a lawless Outback on a quest for the resources needed to survive, and offering protection for those unable to provide their own. Charlize Theron is Imperator Furiosa, who probably does not fall at the more vulnerable end of the spectrum.

On May 29, San Andreas is the Race To Witch Mountain reunion you’ve all been waiting for. Well, it stars Carla Gugino and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson anyway, and that’s good enough for us. The film sees a huge earthquake strike California, so that His Rockness – a rescue helicopter pilot – and ex-wife (Gugino) travel across the stricken state to reach his estranged daughter (Alexandra Daddario). If this doesn’t have a scene where The Rock punches the treacherous Earth into next week we’ll be a little disappointed, but at the very least we’re hoping for tremors and peril.

On August 14 Guy Ritchie’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. reaches us, with Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer as agents on opposing sides of the Cold War who have to work together to combat a larger threat. Cavill is the American Napoleon Solo, with Hammer as the Soviet Ilya Kuryakin. Alicia Vikander, in about her sixteenth film of the year, is the girl who might have the key to the whole thing, with support from Hugh Grant and Jared Harris. Ritchie launched a franchise with Sherlock Holmes before abandoning it (at least temporarily) to make this, and he’s lined up another franchise with King Arthur to come. This will show if he’s still in with a chance at a hat-trick of period action successes.

Hey, remember that film that even Timothy Olyphant couldn’t make watchable? Well, they’re taking another stab at it with Hitman: Agent 47 on August 28. Rupert Friend steps into the black suit, red tie and barcoded neck of the titular genetically-engineered assassin, who helps a woman called Katia (Hannah Ware) looking into her own ancestry. Wouldn’t you know it, she turns out to be genetically-engineered too! Cue fighting bad guys called the Syndicate to find her father, and a final act hopefully a lot less outright stupid than the last Hitman movie's effort.

Literally no-one asked for it, and yet on August 28 the Point Break remake is arriving anyway. You may have thought that a remake had already appeared in the shape of The Fast & The Furious, but this will be closer still to the original, albeit apparently covering all extreme sports and not just surfing and skydiving. Can Luke Bracey match Keanu's delivery of lines like, "I cut my first tube today"? Can Edgar Ramirez match Patrick Swayze's zen-like focus and shaggy hair? Of course not. The best we can hope is that, along with director Ericson Core, they make it their own thing.

Triple Nine, on September 11, has a hell of cast. Woody Harrelson, Kate Winslet, Aaron Paul, Norman Reedus, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Casey Affleck, Anthony Mackie, Gal Gadot, Teresa Palmer and Michael Peña will be teaming up to tell the story of a group of corrupt policemen who plot to murder a rookie cop in order to engineer a distraction from their own planned heist. The wrinkle is that they too are being blackmailed into the robbery, but still, not a cool move, guys. With The Road / Lawless director John Hillcoat in charge, we’re expecting things to get gritty.

Tragically, between the time that Everest went into production and its release on October 2, the 1996 disaster it chronicles was overtaken as the worst ever on the world’s tallest mountain. But this should still be a compelling tale of two climbing expeditions who ran into freak weather on the peak that mixed plummeting oxygen levels with blizzards. Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) are the two expedition leaders, surrounded by another stellar cast (Keira Knightley, Robin Wright, Josh Brolin, Sam Worthington, Emily Watson, John Hawkes) for director Baltasar Kormákur. We just hope we can tell everyone apart in their cold-weather gear.

Evacuate the capital! On October 2 we’re also due to see London Has Fallen, with Gerard Butler returning as the Secret Service agent single-handedly making the world safe for freedom. Aaron Eckhart’s President is in London for a Prime Ministerial funeral, and Butler’s Mike Banning is along to protect him – and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a plot to assassinate all the world leaders present. Let’s play a game of guess who gets stabbed in the neck; you go first.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

FAMILY EXTRAVAGANZAS

Make a big hit for adults and people may go with their significant other. Make a big hit for kids, and they’ll take the little ‘uns and maybe some neighbour’s tots as well – and that means bumper box-office. Here are the big noises this year.

Set in the hybrid city of San Fransokyo and based on a Marvel comic so obscure we doubt that Tony Stark has even heard of it, Big Hero Six on January 30 sees a grieving boy finding his feet with the help of a care robot called Baymax, 2015's answer to 2014's Groot in the Characters To Instantly Fall For stakes. But there's more to it than that! Our hero, Hiro, is also on a quest to discover what - or who - caused a tragic accident and assembles a high-tech super-team to put things right. The animation is gorgeous, the pro-science message is awesome and the characters linger in the mind. After beating Interstellar at the U.S. Box office, this could be big by nature as well as name.

On February 6, fans of ovine mayhem are in for a treat when the Shaun The Sheep Movie arrives. Shaun’s mischief forces his Farmer to leave their home farm, setting the sheep, sheepdog Bitzer and his friends off on a mission to rescue him and bring him home. Since first appearing in A Close Shave and on his own CBeebies show, Shaun has become a firm favourite, and this stop-motion film should be fun. The only question is whether Shaun and company’s wordless antics can sustain a feature-length adventure – but to misquote Wesley Snipes, always bet on Aardman.

If you think that Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper is an alien, the proof will arrive on March 20 in Home. He voices Oh, an alien of the Boov race who has come to Earth to hide from an old enemy. He befriends a human called Tip (Rihanna) and the pair end up with the fate of both races in their hands. Judging by the trailer, Oh and Tip make an adorably funny odd couple, so we’re optimistic for this one.

Perhaps the stories so far seem a bit sensible, a little vanilla. Well, The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water on March 27 should set that to rights. Not content with having a sponge, a starfish and, er, a squirrel living in the undersea town of Bikini Bottom, this one sees Spongebob and company come to the real world and become super-heroes to fight Antonio Banderas’ Burger-Beard The Pirate and his super-villain crew. Because of course it does.

We don’t know much about Monster Trucks, due on May 22, except that it is a mix of live-action and CG and involves some extremely large vehicles. Chris Wedge, of Ice Age fame, is directing, and the cast includes Amy Ryan, Rob Lowe, Danny Glover, Jane Levy and Lucas Till. There had better be tires the size of houses and possibly trucks that eat other trucks as well, or we want our money back.

Beware, around June 26, of hordes of tiny children stampeding through your local cinema in order to see The Minions Movie. The giggling yellow sidekicks are getting their own film, in which it emerges that they have been around, and ineptly serving bad guys, basically forever. This adventure sees them working as henchmen for Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock) and her husband Herb (Jon Hamm) and – we’re guessing – screwing up any evil in her schemes while also defeating a great threat to Minion-ism itself. Whether or not it’s good – and the Minions are funny, so we’re hopeful it will be – the kids are going to go nuts.

2014 has been tough. No one should have to suffer a year without a Pixar. Rejoice, then, for the release of Inside Out on July 24! Pete Docter came up with this one, which travels inside the head of a young girl called Riley to look at the emotions that live there: Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). As Riley negotiates a new house, school and friends after her family moves to San Francisco, the emotions clash on how to react to all the change. So it’s sort of psychology for the under 10s? We’re intrigued.

On October 9 we’ll see the horror sequel Hotel Transylvania 2, with an older generation of monsters clashing with the established characters. In particular, that means Mel Brooks’ Vlad will turn up and cause trouble for Dracula (Adam Sandler) and his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez). We appreciate the effort to bring Brooks back to comedy horror, and we enjoyed Genndy Tartakovsky’s animation last time. We just hope the plot is a little more nuanced go around.

B.O.O: Bureau Of Otherwordly Operations keeps things spooky on October 16, set as it is in a top-secret government agency that employs ghosts to protect humanity from more dangerous forces. Seth Rogen and Melissa McCarthy voice the agents who come to suspect that something seriously bad is about to happen; Bill Murray is the villain who seeks to make sure that it does. That’s a promising cast, anyway; we’re going to do our best to set aside memories of R.I.P.D. and enjoy this on its own terms.

Also on October 16 is The Jungle Book, which also features Bill Murray on voice work – this time as Baloo. Now this is the Jon Favreau, Disney take on the Jungle Book, and is not to be confused with the Andy Serkis-directed Jungle Book: Origins in 2016. This is the one with Idris Elba as Shere Khan, Ben Kingsley as Bagheera, Scarlett Johansson as Kaa, Lupita Nyong’o as wolf mother Rackcha and Christopher Walken as King Louie. Neel Sethi plays Mowgli, raised by the animals of the jungle but under threat from the great tiger Shere Khan. This one will be live-action but with considerable amounts of CGI; Sethi is the only actor we’ll see onscreen so it’s a good thing he’s adorable.

You wait ages for a Pixar movie, and here come two in a year. The Good Dinosaur arrives on November 27 and imagines a world where the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, well, missed. Our hero is a young 70-ft. apatosaurus called Arlo (Lucas Neff) who leaves home and goes travelling with a human boy called Spot. A “traumatic event” rattles his community and sets him off on this quest for peace, but that’s all we know so far. Original director Bob Peterson was repaced by Peter Sohn on this, but that’s practically business as usual for Pixar at this point. The voice cast includes John Lithgow, Frances McDormand, Judy Greer, Bill Hader and Neil Patrick Harris.

It has been 35 years since the last Peanuts movie, a hand-drawn affair. On December 21, Snoopy And Charlie Brown: A Peanuts Movie is bringing Charles M. Schulz’ characters back to the big screen in CG animated form. Original Snoopy artist Bill Melendez will still voice his doggy alter ego, thanks to archival recordings, and Schulz’ son and grandson have worked to put this together while maintaining the original, lo-fi feel of the script despite the high-tech production. Given the emphasis all involved have placed on their love of the original, and their understanding of Charlie Brown’s perpetual quest for minor success in the face of repeated failure, we’re optimistic that this effort – marking the 65th anniversary of the first strip – will be worthy of the name Peanuts.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

YOUNG ADULT

Its brightest star, The Hunger Games, may be among our billion-dollar hopefuls above, but the young adult adaptations that followed it are going strong.

The first one to arrive will be The Divergent Series: Insurgent on March 20, which sees Shailene Woodley’s Tris reaping the whirlwind of the rebellion that began in the first film. The Factions of her society, supposedly based on cardinal virtues, are irrevocably split. This instalment will have more revelations about the mysterious Four (Theo James) and how the heck this whole Faction thing works – although it won’t be until final story Allegiant (split, inevitably, in two) that we’ll get the full explanation of the origin of this world.

Things get a little lighter on May 15 when Pitch Perfect 2 arrives. This film aims to raise the stakes for Anna Kendrick’s Beca and friends, with their a capella group The Barden Belles initially an unbeatable force in the field. But when a performance goes badly wrong, they are banned from competition and have to find a new path – and some new sounds. Elizabeth Banks, who produced the first film, steps up to direct here and seems quietly confident that they've pulled it off again. The original is already a cult classic, so we’re hoping this proves the Evil Dead 2 of choral singing movies.

One of year’s big breakout hits was The Fault In Our Stars. On July 3 another adaptation of a John Green book, Paper Towns, will arrive. Nat Wolff, who played support in Stars, steps up here as Q. His neighbour Margo (Cara Delevigne), on whom he has a long-standing crush, climbs in his window one night and asks him to go on a quest for revenge with her. When she later disappears, he sets off to find her – but things don’t go quite to plan. This one doesn’t quite have the culty source material of Stars, but Green’s army of fans should still propel it to success.

You know what’s worse than being trapped in a giant maze? Escaping it and finding out that the world beyond is even worse – and that’s the set up for The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials on September 18. After escaping the Maze, Thomas (Dylan O'Brien), Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) and friends learn a little about what sort of society sends kids into a labyrinthine death trap. Turns out, it's a desperate one suffering an environmental disaster and strange plague, and peopled with the likes of Aidan Gillen, Patricia Clarkson, Lily Taylor, Giancarlo Esposito and Barry Pepper. The first film was effective in establishing style and environment; if returning director Wes Ball does the same this time it could be better than the book.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

FANTASY

When you really need to get away from it all, fairytales and fantasy are the way forward. Witches, wizards, fairy godmothers and other worlds are what you need, and they are plentiful this year.

Into The Woods is first up on January 9. Once you get past the necessary suspension of disbelief involved with this musical fantasy (Emily Blunt is married to James Corden? It’s a bit much to swallow) the rest of this twisted fairytale should be no problem. Based on Stephen Sondheim's show, this gives us a happy ending halfway through and then brutally rips it away, showing that you really should be careful what you wish for. The songs are pretty catchy too: the title song and Agony (due to be sung by Chris Pine’s Prince Charming) will be in your head for days.

Judging by the trailer and what Empire saw on set, girly princessiness is the order of the day in Cinderella on March 27, a film that boasts dresses the size of battleships with puffy sleeves big enough to accommodate a family of four. Downton's Lily James makes for a likeable heroine amid the frouff, and Cate Blanchett seems to be having a ball - literally - as her Wicked Stepmother, with Helena Bonham Carter looking typically dizzy as the Fairy Godmother. Director Kenneth Branagh created an effective and gorgeous gilded world with Thor; he may have managed another here.

Like Mad Max, Seventh Son comes a couple of years later than anticipated and dogged by rumours of problems when it hits on March 27. But the basic idea of having Jeff Bridges play a wizard, facing off against his Lebowski co-star Moore as a shape shifting witch, seems more than sound. With the legendary Dante Ferretti on production design it should look spectacular, and the actors – including Alicia Vikander, Ben Barnes, Djimon Hounsou and Kit Harington – are all solid. Director Sergey Bodrov made a spectacular impression with Mongol, and we're still hopeful for this English-language debut.

At the more magically-realist end of the spectrum sits The Cobbler on April 10, starring Adam Sandler as a man who can literally walk in other people’s shoes thanks to a magical heirloom. This might sound like one of those disappointing comedies that Sandler has a bad habit of falling into, but for the fact that Thomas McCarthy – of The Station Agent fame – is in the director’s chair. We are therefore willing to remain intrigued here, also thanks to support from Dustin Hoffman, Dan Stevens, Steve Buscemi and Ellen Barkin.

2015 seems to be the year that Hugh Jackman goes dark. First he’s the bad guy in Chappie, and then on July 17 he follows that with the fearsome Blackbeard in Pan. Jackman plays a pirate so thoroughly rotten that even Garrett Hedlund’s not-yet-captain Hook thinks he’s a bit of a wrong’un. In fact, Hook teams up with the titular Pan (Levi Miller) to take down their mutual enemy. Let’s just hope the idealistic young sailor doesn’t lose a hand to a crocodile and become desperately embittered in the process!
http://www.empireonline.com/features/2015-movie-preview/

 

[clairvoyance]

Black white white white black white white white white white black white black white white white white white white

 

[indyman87]

It's like we're living in the 1950's. I guess all of the Black Actors and actresses are auditioning for Love and Hip Hop Nebraska or something. They could at least put a couple in supporting roles.

 

[KingFreeman]

Goat thread.

 

[dontdiedontkillanyon]

As we are half way through 2015 - the best and worst films of the year so far?