The Amazing 2012 Movie Discussion Rises: An Unexpected Journey

[Barry the Nomad]

It's 2012! That means a slew of big budget movies are heading our way, some will suck, some will be okay and a few will rule. Here are a few of the big ones, there are more obviously, but I'm going mainly for the big franchise films and comic book movies:

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - February 17th


The Secret World of Arrietty - February 17th


The Avengers - May 4th


Men in Black III - May 25th

Prometheus - June 8th


The Amazing Spider-Man - July 3rd

The Dark Knight Rises - July 20th


The Bourne Legacy - August 3rd

Resident Evil: Retribution - September 14th

Dredd - September 21st

James Bond: Skyfall - November 9th

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II <- LOL NO!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - December 14th


Django Unchained - December 25th

Personally, I'm looking forward to only a hand full. The Secret World of Arrietty, Avengers, Dark Knight Rises, James Bond and The Hobbit. Also planning on seeing Phantom Menace in 3D this Saturday, but thats not a new movie.

One movie I am not into at all, despite seeing the trailer this morning, is The Amazing Spider-Man. I get it, it could be a decent or even good movie, but I just can't stop thinking "why?" throughout the trailer. WHY reboot the series just 10 years after the first film and five years after the last one? WHY not do what James Bond does and just dive into the world of Spider-Man with new actors but the have the past movies serve as a light basis for the new one? WHY hire a 28 year old to play a high school student? WHY shift around all the character's roles? WHY make Peter's dad a scientist (I'm assuming Norman Osborn killed him)? It's another fucking origin story, only they intentionally moved things around and reassigned character's roles JUST to make it different enough from the first movie! Ugh. I'm sure I'll see it, but probably not in theaters because I'm too much of a cranky asshole.

So anyway... movies! :D

[Sharky]

I can't believe Ghost Rider did well enough for a sequal... It was never one of Marvels better ideas for a comic let alone a movie.

Also I saw Arrietty last year when it first released in Japan, not bad! But not one of my favourite Ghibli movies either.

I have to say of all I'm by far the most excited about The Hobbit. Followed by Prometheus. I'm curious to see Dredd, first I've heard of it actually... I suspect it's based on Judge Dredd!? Oh and curious about Men in Black 3.

But yeah... The Hobbit is going to be one of those movie moments of my life!!

[Chaosmaster8753]

Apparently, the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney movie is being planned for a worldwide release at some point, I'm curious about it. As for other movies, I do know I'm interested in seeing Avengers, Dark Knight Rises, Spirit of Vengeance (it might suck, but whatever,) Arriety, Amazing Spider-Man, and whatever else catches my interest. Why am I such a sucker for these kind of movies?...

[George]

I heard the sequel is more dark, than the last one. I still want a new Spawn movie.

Anyway, 2012 is going to be awesome. I want to see Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, The Hobbit, The Amazing Spider-man and Django Unchained (not listed).

[Barry the Nomad]

Added Django Unchained, forgot about that one. Wes Anderson also has a new movie this year, but it doesn't really fall under the umbrella of "blockbuster movie" so I didn't include it. Though I did include Arrietty.

I'm really thinking Bane cripples Batman in Dark Knight Rises. The ending looks to have Batman flying around in this insane copter. He could easily be sitting down during that bit. Maybe the big secret is that he recruits somebody to fight for him, a sort of Robin character? Probably not gonna happen.. but it would be pretty crazy if it did.

[George]

You mean Batman giving up his role to Azrael in Knightfall? Doubt it, I don't think movie goers would like to see this happen, won't be easy to repair.

[max_cady]

Well, I won't add that much, but this year I'm kinda waiting to see how these movies play out:

-This Means War: I know, I know... But there's something True Lies-ish about it;
-Dark Shadows: Edgar Allan Poe tracking a killer that uses his own novels as his MO? Sold!
-Madagascar 3: It's weird, it's one of those animated CG films that have actually gotten better as time went on. The first one all the way back in 2005, was largely forgettable, but the second one was a huge improvement, so obviously I got my eye out for this one;


I also hope this the year, we finally see the new version of Red Dawn get an actual release date.

[MadeManG74]

I've never seen the first Ghost Rider, but heard it was hot garbage. I have a feeling the sequel isn't going to be great either, but I really really want to see. I just recently got into the character, and I think theres potential to make an awesome movie out of it. If nothing else, the action scenes look like they'll be good.
Also Sharky, why don't you think Ghost Rider is a good character? Personally it's one of my favourite concepts, someone selling their soul to the devil and then being binded to a demon and basically just becoming a bad-ass biker that spits hellfire and uses the chains of hell to wreck everyone's shit. Also, he's really fun in Ultimate MVC3.

Apart from that Dark Knight Rises will of course be good, not sure how it'll pan out, and I'm not really following it that closely. Hopefully i'll be nicely surprised. I hope even more that this means the next movie is Dark Knight Returns starring Stallone as an old Batman.

I'm kind of in two minds about Avengers, from what I know about the movie they've made some changes that I can understand but don't like to the characters and... I dunno the movie just seems to have more of a cheese feel about it than the other movies in the franchise (except for Captain America which was cheese central and I didn't enjoy much).

[SOUP]

This year's shaping up to be pretty great. A bunch of my favourite director's are all putting out new movies this year.
- Dark Knight Rises
- The Avengers
- Moonrise Kingdom

Cabin in the Woods is finally coming out :D.
The Secret World of Arriety getting a wide release is something I'm really excited for.
John Carter looks pretty interesting.
Django Unchained should be good times too.

I wasn't looking forward to Spider-man at all, but the trailer has me interested at least.

[Sharky]

Also Sharky, why don't you think Ghost Rider is a good character? Personally it's one of my favourite concepts, someone selling their soul to the devil and then being binded to a demon and basically just becoming a bad-ass biker that spits hellfire and uses the chains of hell to wreck everyone's shit. Also, he's really fun in Ultimate MVC3.

I've only seen the movie and it was total arse but it seems really out of place in their usual comic book hero universe.

[MadeManG74]

^Yeah the original movie looked baaaaaad, I haven't seen it. I almost want to just for laughs though.
As for not fitting in with Marvel overall, there's actually quite a bit of supernatural mythic/spiritual stuff going on in Marvel (Thor being a 'god', Dormammu, Mephisto, Azazel all being demonic entities etc.)

[max_cady]

I've seen the original Ghost Rider aaanddd... Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's almost Catwoman bad.

From the paper thin plot to simply horrible performances. The new movie itself has me a bit cautious, mainly because it's been pretty much dumped in Febuary, like Sony did with Green Hornet.

Maybe the new one will be good.

The movie that has me puzzled, however, is John Carter. The movie will be out in March, nobody is talking about it, to people I talk to regularly about movies, we either talk about TDKR, the new Spiderman and many more. Nobody seems to be even aware about this one. And for a 200 million dollar Disney movie to have this much radio silence cannot be good.

[SOUP]

The movie that has me puzzled, however, is John Carter. The movie will be out in March, nobody is talking about it, to people I talk to regularly about movies, we either talk about TDKR, the new Spiderman and many more. Nobody seems to be even aware about this one. And for a 200 million dollar Disney movie to have this much radio silence cannot be good.

Not only that, but it's the same director as Finding Nemo and Wall-E. The guy even wrote Toy Story 3.

[Barry the Nomad]

Ghost Rider gets a sequel, but Daredevil and Superman Returns do not?

At least the latter two were decent to good, Ghost Rider was crap.

[max_cady]

@SOUP

What? ***Checks IMDB*** Oh in that case I'm even more puzzled. Even moreso since it has an Avatar-like budget.

@BarrytheNomad

Superman Returns was actually not as bad as some have claimed it to be. But nevertheless it didn't make enough money.
Here's hoping for the The Man of Steel.

The Wolverine is also finally getting off the ground, as it would appear 20th Century Fox is finally getting their s*** together with the X-men series.
Daredevil and Fantastic Four have most likely gone back to Disney at this point.