2008 Preview

Feature by Jonathan Melville | 06 Jan 2008
As the celluloid highs (arise the Last King of Scotland) and lows (good luck forgetting Good Luck, Chuck) of 2007 fade to black, another batch of hopefuls are waiting for the trailers to finish so they can have their 90 minutes of fame. From ageing archaeologists to demon barbers, drug deals gone wrong to homemade remakes of Back to the Future, 2008 is already shaping up to be a memorable year for cinemagoers, hopefully for all the right reasons. So grab some popcorn, switch off your mobile phone and prepare for a whistle-stop tour of thirty upcoming cinematic offerings from the year ahead…

Action/Thriller

Nineteen years after his last adventure, the man in the hat is back. Again. Harrison Ford dons battered fedora in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (May), taking on the Nazi hordes (maybe) in the jungle (probably) with his son in tow (possibly). Plot details are sketchy but, if the cast list - including Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent and the return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood - and on-set photos are to believed it should be a highlight of the year.

Another celluloid icon returns in the as-yet untitled (Ian Fleming short story titles Property of a Lady and Risico are rumoured) Bond 22 (November). Locations such as Italy, Panama and the Swiss Alps provide the backdrop while Judi Dench returns to the field as M, but still no sign of a new Q. This time around the focus will hopefully be more on Daniel Craig's acting talents than his swimming trunks.

Dundee's finest, Brian Cox, is Frank Perry, an institutionalised convict 12 years into a life sentence without parole in The Escapist (April). When his estranged daughter falls ill, he is determined to make peace with her before it's too late. He develops an ingenious escape plan, and recruits a dysfunctional band of allies. A promising thriller-cum-slacker-comedy arrives in the form of David Gordon Green's Pineapple Express (September). Hollywood wunderkind Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) and one-time Green Goblin James Franco (they also co-starred in short-lived TV show Freaks & Geeks) go on the run from the police after one of them witnesses a cop commit murder.

Finally, just when you thought it was safe to go back into the enemy occupied jungle, Sly Stallone returns as Rambo (February). With Stallone also directing, expect lots of guns and just a few explosions.

Comedy

How's this for high-concept: in Be Kind Rewind (February), Jerry (Jack Black) discovers his brain is magnetised when he inadvertently erases all the movies at his friend's video rental store. Now he must remake movies such as Ghostbusters, Robocop and Back to the Future on a shoestring budget so that the customers won't notice. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind's Michel Gondry directs.

A pet project of Ben Stiller's for nearly 20 years, Tropic Thunder (August) tells of a group of actors (including Robert Downey Jr and Jack Black) shooting a big-budget war movie who are inadvertently forced to use their limited training in a real war scenario. As both director and star, Stiller is usually a safe pair of hands (see 1994's Reality Bites) while two decades of rewrites must surely count for something.

Does Steve Carell ever sleep? This time he's playing a man who's fallen in love with his brother's new girlfriend Marie (Juliette Binoche), in Dan in Real Life (January). Thanks to a family reunion, Dan has to be in her company longer than he'd like. Let's hope it's more 40 Year Old Virgin than Evan Almighty. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (October) is an adaptation of Toby Litt's novel of the same name and stars Simon Pegg as Sidney, a British journalist snapped up by a high-profile magazine in New York. Pegg's films can be hit-and-miss but he's always watchable.

The final comedy of interest arrives in the form of The Bucket List (February). Directed by This is Spinal Tap's Rob Reiner, it stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two terminally ill men who escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die.

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Sequels and prequels rule in 2008 as a mixture of old favourites and newcomers vie for supremacy.

Holy bat sequels! The return of the caped crusader in Batman Begins (2005) was nothing short of a revelation, banishing memories of Joel Schumacher's camp Batman & Robin (1997) to the depths of the batcave. In The Dark Knight (July), Christian Bale returns as Bats alongside Michael Caine as Alfred, while Heath Ledger tries to out-manic Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Two things in its favour so far: the teaser poster looks stunning and there's no Prince to provide the music.

Shrouded in secrecy, the viral marketing campaign for Cloverfield (February) suggests Godzilla meets the black smoke from producer JJ Abrahms and writer Drew Goddard's TV series Lost. Whatever it's about, expect much hype. There's no sign of William "I don't do cameos" Shatner in Star Trek XI (December). Instead, it's up to a new crew to boldly go where numerous casts have gone before, though Leonard Nimoy turns up as an older Spock alongside newbies Zachary Quinto (Sylar in Heroes) as his younger self and Winona Ryder as his mum. Simon Pegg as Scotty could steal the show.

In Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (August), Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and co fight against the minions of the underworld in Guillermo Del Toro's continuation of the saga, while Ed Norton discovers it's still not easy being green in The Incredible Hulk (June) as he takes on lead actor duties from Eric Bana in the hulked-up sequel. This time around, Tim Roth co-stars as new adversary The Abomination, whose strength exceeds even the Hulk's.

Drama

From 19th Century London to modern day America via 1940s Shanghai, drama in 2008 is nothing if not well travelled.

Music, murder and a bit of mystery are all present in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (January), the film version of Stephen Sondheim's musical based on the 19th Century legend. Johnny Depp is Todd alongside Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs Lovett, both usually worth the price of entrance to any film. Alan Rickman could steal the picture as Judge Turpin.

Thanks to a contract that sees him set free from the tuxedo between Bonds, Flashbacks Of A Fool (March) stars Daniel Craig as Joe Scott, a drug-addled Hollywood actor whose fame is fading fast. Elsewhere, dubbed by the Los Angeles Times "a brooding meditation on the unnerving power and terrible cost of emotional and political masquerades", is Ang Lee's latest, Lust, Caution (January). 1942 Shanghai is the location for this tale told in flashback of spying and high society starring Joan Chen and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai.

Based on the 1927 novel Oil!, There Will Be Blood (February) sees the return to cinema screens of Daniel Day-Lewis as a prospector who strikes it rich in crude oil. As his fortune grows, his life soon starts to fall apart around him. Boogie Nights and Magnolia director Paul Thomas Anderson directs as well as providing the screenplay.

In Man in the Chair (January), Christopher Plummer is Glen "Flash" Madden, the last living cast member from Citizen Kane. Flash befriends cinema-loving car thief Cameron, who only committed the crime because the vehicle was an exact replica of the one in John Carpenter's Christine (1983). Cameron is now on a mission to become a director, or "man in the chair" and Flash just might be able to help him out.

Romance

Perhaps the oddest romance of the year, Christina Ricci is Penelope (February), a young woman cursed with the face of a pig until she finds true love. We guarantee there'll be no jokes about hammy acting in The Skinny when it's released.

Garnering mixed reviews at Cannes in 2007, Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights (February) is a romantic comedy about a young woman (singer Nora Jones) on a road trip across America, seeking the true meaning of love and meeting odd characters along the way. Jude Law and Rachel Weisz support.

There are also a number of jumps from various sources to the silver screen this summer. Pierce Brosnan swaps gadgets, girls and guns for Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! in Mamma Mia (July) as the hit musical arrives in cinemas. Sex and the City: The Movie (TBC) sees the cast of the HBO series reunite after four years away, while Confessions of a Shopaholic (August) is based on the bestselling novel that introduced one-woman shopping phenomenon Becky Bloomwood to an unsuspecting readership. Confessions… stars rom-com regular Isla Fisher as Becky.

Oscar possibilities

Wooing the Academy for the prize of a golden statuette come February is never an exact science; the following selection of films each has something that might just tip the scales in their favour, but There Will Be Blood is already emerging as the one to beat.

Also a hot favourite is In The Valley Of Elah (January), Crash director and Bond 22 scribe Paul Haggis's story about a couple's search for their son, recently returned from Iraq. It's said to contain a career-best performance from Tommy Lee Jones, while being described as heralding a return to anti-war flicks in the same vein as Coming Home (1978). Tom Hanks is the titular Wilson in Mike Hodge's Charlie Wilson's War (January), based on the true story of a Texan congressman whose covert dealings in Afghanistan led to the formation of the Taliban. One rule of Hollywood thumb? Oscar hearts Tom (and co-star Julia Roberts).

Nick Broomfield's Battle for Haditha (February) is a controversial dramatisation of the events which led to the massacre of 24 men, women and children in Haditha, Iraq in 2005. Professional and amateur actors mingle as events unfold. The story of pregnant Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) as she makes choices about her unborn baby is the premise of Juno (February). There's already an Oscar buzz surrounding Jennifer Garner for the role of adoptive mother Vanessa, while Arrested Development's Jason Bateman is said to add some dramatic heart to the picture as her husband.