The Scene

Most Anticipated Flicks of 2012

Published on Tuesday, January 03 2012
Written by Kate Ferguson

New year, new movies! There is a lot to look forward to, and here is a brief look at some (only some!) of them...

We are going to be seeing a ton of series in 2012, some endings and some beginnings. The Dark Knight Rises is the last in this Batman journey; Skyfall is the next in Bond films; Breaking Dawn Part II will conclude the Twilight series (but don’t worry, there are more vampires on the way); and The Hunger Games is the first movie to be released in its trilogy. We will have a prequel in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. We are even going to see Men in Black III, which will revolve around time travel to the '60s in an effort to save a life and change the future. Plus, who hasn’t been anxiously awaiting Scary Movie 5 or Paranormal Activity 4?

The Avengers is not exactly a series continuation, but it is an extension. This film will bring together Marvel Comic characters that we’ve already met in other movies, including Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, and Captain America. We also get an extension to the Bourne films with The Bourne Legacy (no Matt Damon this time though, sorry). In the fantasy realm, we see both Snow White and the Huntsman (Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart) and Mirror Mirror (Julia Roberts and Lily Collins), Dorothy of Oz, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which presents vampires as the real reason behind the Civil War.

Some of our favorite directors will be busy too. Next up from Quentin Tarantino is Django Unchained starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx about a rescue from a Mississippi plantation. The Coen Brothers are back to work with Inside Llewyn Davis about a fictional folk musician. Tim Burton will bring us the gothic Dark Shadows, based on the vampire-centric TV show, and the animated Frankenweenie. From Ridley Scott, we have Prometheus, which may or not be a prequel to Alien depending on who you ask.

We’ll get some of Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis, Ryan Gosling in Only God Forgives, Brad Pitt in Cogan’s Trade, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing a character loosely based on L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, in The Master. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney will grace the screen together in Gravity, which takes place in space.

Steve Carrell joins up with Keira Knightley in Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, and Emily Blunt shows up in the romance Salmon Fishing in Yemen, the comedy The Five Year Engagement alongside Jason Segel, and Looper with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Busy girl!

With so much cinematic focus on extreme circumstances and fantasylands, it’s hard to shock anymore, but there are a lot of unique-sounding ideas. There will be a film based on the book Life of Pi about a boy who is stranded on a boat alongside a few animals, including a tiger. There is a zombie love story called Warm Bodies. A possible contender for most unique and potentially hilarious film is Casa de Mi Padre, a melodrama solely in Spanish, starring Will Farrell. It is supposedly going to extend upon a telenovela skit from Will’s days on "Saturday Night Live".

What films are YOU most looking forward to in 2012?

 

- Kate Ferguson, YH Staff