You may not have heard that a new Spider-Man film is heading our way (relaunched, revamped, regenerated, resurrected and regurgitated). Prepare to be amazed! Columbia Pictures has announced that the title of the new film will be The Amazing Spider-Man. Rather than continuing with director Sam Raimi and stars Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker and Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson, Marc Webb directs with Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker and Emma Stone as the female lead Gwen Stacy.
Director Roland Emmerich recently discussed the Foundation film project with Empire Magazine, his epic adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series that was announced so long ago that I can't even remember the year.
20th Century Fox's relaunch of the X-Men franchise with X-Men: First Class sounded a bit dubious to me when I first heard about it, but the first trailer puts any doubts I had to rest. The trailer looks extremely well produced, with a style and gravity missing from the last pure X-Men film, X-Men: The Last Stand (not that you should judge a film by its special effects, but there are some great effects in the trailer too!).
There are so many comic book inspired movies in production that it's becoming quite difficult to keep up. Captain America: The First Avenger is the latest from Marvel comics and a new trailer reveals that it's not as tacky as the title suggests (although it is a bit tacky obviously, with a name like Captain America: The First Avenger it's unavoidable).
A trailer for director Jon Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens has appeared in the US (part of a collection of new SF trailers shown during the US Super Bowl). Compared to the previous teaser, there's more action and a few close encounters with an alien spacecraft, including Daniel Craig leaping onto the wing of the spacecraft from a horse (as you do).
New trailer for Abrams' Super 8
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Super 8 has been a bit of a mystery thus far. We know that J.J. Abrams' wrote the script and is directing and that Steven Spielberg is executive producer. We also know that the film takes place in Ohio in 1979 and follows a group of kids making their own homemade movie who stumble across a monster near a train wreak. At one stage in the new Super 8 trailer - which you can watch below - a boy is shown filming something on a Super 8 camera, so I'm guessing they've filmed something they shouldn't have and will be chased by the military who are concealing an alien visitor? Just a guess of course...
The third trailer for Battle: Los Angeles is even more impressive than the first two (and I really liked the first two). With a dark military feel, new footage reveals spectacular special effects along with some "above average" science fiction dialogue. There's no obvious clangers in what is heard or shown, but it's only a trailer, and as usual almost impossible to work out if the story will amount to anything (or "nothing" as in the case of the recent alien invasion film Skyline). Like the first full length trailer, the third features music from the haunting experimental Icelandic musician, Jóhann Jóhannsson. The track is called The Sun's Gone Dim And The Sky's Turned Black.
Ridley Scott's Alien prequel is no longer an Alien prequel. Instead, the film has morphed into a science fiction film in its own right, independent from the Alien film franchise. According to The Guardian, the new film will star Noomi Rapace (the original star of the Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) as a scientist named Elizabeth Shaw. Scott has been adding to a screenplay by Damon Lindelof, based on a treatment by Jon Spaihts. Lindelof was one of the main writers on J.J. Abrams Lost, which ended after six seasons last year. The new film will be called Prometheus.
Early on in Christopher Smith’s Black Death there are several moments when fans of Monty Python's The Holy Grail might be tempted to crack a smile. Both movies are set at a time when England is ravaged by plague ("Bring out your dead!") and infected with the sort of religious fervour and superstitious thinking that was instrumental in the murder of countless women accused of witchcraft ("A witch! A witch! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her!"). Both those quotes are from The Holy Grail and in context they're hilarious and I was instantly reminded of the scenes they're lifted from when watching Black Death, especially when we encounter a hysterical mob convinced they've found the witch responsible for inviting Death into their village.
Priest stars Paul Bettany as a legendary, post-apocalyptic ninja-warrior priest who likes nothing better than to kill monster vampires. If the trailer below is anything to go by, this one is going to be great.