  The Bounty Hunter, Death at a Funeral and Kick-Ass are among the films that are slated for release this spring. |
Superheroes, remakes, 3D animated comedies - who says summer hasn’t started? Not Hollywood, which will try to keep post-Avatar moviegoers lulled into submission with sequels, stars and special effects until Iron Man 2 opens May 7.
So far, audiences are biting. Consider the fortunes of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, which has obliterated records. Hoping to follow Alice, if not down the rabbit hole but into the box office stratosphere are these 10 wannabe blockbusters, opening from now until the end of April.
THE BOUNTY HUNTER
WHEN: March 19
WHO’S IN IT: Jennifer Aniston, Gerard Butler
THE PITCH: A bounty hunter is hired to track down his ex-wife, who’s wanted from both sides of the law. In a perfect world, it’d be Midnight Run meets War of the Roses.
THE GOOD NEWS: The pairing of Butler, who women adore, and Aniston, who gets improbably hotter with each passing year. And this can’t be as wretched and unholy as their last respective romantic forays - Love Happens and The Ugly Truth - can it? Can it?
THE BAD NEWS: Actually, the trailer looks just like the kind of ass you’d expect from the director of Fool’s Gold and Hitch.
HOT TUB TIME MACHINE
WHEN: March 26
WHO’S IN IT: John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Clark Duke, Craig Robinson and Lizzy Caplan, who you can never have too much of.
THE PITCH: Four miserable middle-aged friends go hot-tubbing in present-day and wake up in the 1980s. It’s The Hangover meets Back to the Future.
THE GOOD NEWS: I just described it as “The Hangover meets Back to the Future.” Could there be better news?
THE BAD NEWS: How can it possibly live up to those expectations?
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
WHEN: March 26
WHO’S IN IT: The voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson and America Ferrera
THE PITCH: In this CG animated comedy, a young Viking (Montreal’s Baruchel) who aspires to be a dragon slayer discovers the beasts aren’t that terrible. Naturally, his elders aren’t easily convinced dragons make good pets.
THE GOOD NEWS: A funny, appealing trailer. And its enlightened eco-friendly message - up-ending 20th century templates of good vs. evil - can’t be a bad thing in a post-Avatar world.
THE BAD NEWS: At some point, audiences will exhibit signs of CG 3D animated fatigue. But considering the box office grosses of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, we’re not there yet.
CLASH OF THE TITANS
WHEN: April 2
WHO’S IN IT: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes
THE PITCH: In this remake of the 1981 fantasy - best remembered for being the last gasp of stop-motion creature effects - Avatar’s Worthington stars as Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus (Neeson) who battles on the side of humans in a war with the mythical titans. Fiennes, once again with a grudge against Muggles, is the scheming lord of the underworld Hades.
THE GOOD NEWS: Instead of sullying a masterpiece, they’re remaking a movie that wasn’t good to begin with. And who doesn’t want to see mythical creatures - the monstrous Kraken, the winged horse Pegasus and Medusa, the snake-coifed she-demon who turns men to stone with a glance - upgraded?
THE BAD NEWS: Director Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk) has yet to demonstrate he’s in Peter Jackson’s - or Zack Snyder’s - league.
DATE NIGHT
WHEN: April 9
WHO’S IN IT: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg, James Franco, Mila Kunis, Ray Liotta
THE PITCH: Carell and Fey play a bored married couple whose date night takes an unexpected, dangerous twist after a case of mistaken identity.
THE GOOD NEWS: Carell and Fey, naturally.
THE BAD NEWS: While its stars are in two of TV’s wittiest urbane comedies, much of their film work - Get Smart, Baby Mama - has leaned towards the big and broad. Further to that point, the director is Shawn Levy, whose lowest-common-denominator credits - The Pink Panther (the Steve Martin remake, just to be clear) and Night at the Museum - hardly inspire confidence.
KICK-ASS
WHEN: April 16
WHO’S IN IT: Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cages, Chloe Moretz, Mark Strong, Christopher Mintz-Plasse
THE PITCH: Superbad with superheroes. A teenager living in the real world decides to dress up like a superhero and fight crime - despite his lack of powers and/or resources. He winds up inspiring a psychotic father-daughter duo, Big Daddy and Hit Girl (Cage and Moretz). Based on the hyper-violent cult comic book.
THE GOOD NEWS: The source material, while nihilistic, is propulsive fun. And the director is Matthew Vaughn, who helmed the marvelous London crime thriller Layer Cake and the underappreciated Stardust.
THE BAD NEWS: The character of Hit Girl - a foul-mouthed, sword-wielding 12-year-old girl - is already a target of conservative moral crusaders. But then anything that annoys those people is a good thing, isn’t it?
DEATH AT A FUNERAL
WHEN: April 16
WHO’S IN IT: Martin Lawrence, Chris Rock, Zoe Saldana, Tracy Morgan, James Marsden, Peter Dinklage
THE PITCH: A remake of the little-seen 2007 British film about a family funeral that turns into a nightmare when a mysterious diminutive man from the deceased patriarch’s past turns up.
THE GOOD NEWS: How can a comedy with this cast not produce some laughs?
THE BAD NEWS: The last remake Neil LaBute directed was The Wicker Man.
THE BACK-UP PLAN
WHEN: April 23
WHO’S IN IT: Jennifer Lopez, Alex O’Loughlin
THE PITCH: A woman (Lopez) decides that even if she can’t find Mr. Right, she can still be a mother. Wouldn’t you know it, though, as soon as she starts showing symptoms of pregnancy, she meets the man of her dreams (Alex O’Loughlin). Some guys are into pregnant chicks, we hear.
THE GOOD NEWS: O’Loughlin is considered a star on the rise, despite two cancelled TV series (Moonlight and Three Rivers). CBS just signed to star in their remake of Hawaii Five-O. Director Alan Poul’s TV credits includes the terrific Big Love. And after being so overexposed in the previous decade, Lopez may have laid low long enough to outlast memories of Bennifer.
THE BAD NEWS: Lopez’s iffy track record. Her last rom-com was 2005’s regrettable Monster-in-Law.
THE LOSERS
WHEN: April 23
WHO’S IN IT: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans
THE PITCH: Based on the comic book, this action-thriller follows a CIA black ops team who, after being double-crossed and presumed dead, seek revenge. Think The A-Team with Zoe Saldana instead of the van or the mohawk.
THE GOOD NEWS: Most moviegoers would trade the van and Mohawk for Saldana. And it has a two-month head start on the The A-Team feature film that stars Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper.
THE BAD NEWS: It has nowhere near the name-brand recognition - or star power - of The A-Team. And it has a few precious few weeks of release to make its mark before it’s inundated by the summer movie tsunami.
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
WHEN: April 30
WHO’S IN IT: Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Kellan Lutz
THE PITCH: In this remake of Wes Craven’s horror classic (in which, as trivia buffs will remember, Johnny Depp played one of the victims), teenagers are stalked by Freddy Krueger, a maniacal murderer who kills people in their dreams. You fall asleep, you die. In the land of producer Michael Bay (Transformers), that’s almost too much plot.
THE GOOD NEWS: Haley (Watchmen) is an inspired choice to replace Robert Englund and director Samuel Bayer has said he wants to jettison the jokiness that pervaded the later sequels (i.e.: Freddy vs. Jason).
THE BAD NEWS: This is the latest horror rehash from Bay’s Platinum Dunes, which also brought us insipid remakes of The Amityville Horror and The Hitcher.
