Last year was an explosive one for entertainment. Behemoths like “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” and Justin Bieber’s “My Life 2.0” were propped up by more worthy productions, like Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life” and Adele’s “21”. In 2011, eight of the top 10 highest grossing films were sequels, and 2012 will likely continue that trend in the box office. But 2012 will also go out with a bang, in one way or another, due do a deluge of original content.
Anticipation is already high for sequels and prequels like Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” and Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” Batman’s last romp through Gotham and Bilbo Baggins’ first encounter with the Ring are likely to live up to their hype, but is the same true for Will Smith’s return to hunting aliens in “Men in Black III?” The second movie, released a decade ago, ceased to dazzle like the first one. A quirky time travel replacement of Tommy Lee Jones with Josh Brolin (“True Grit,” “Jonah Hex”) might be enough to save this film from the flash-and-forget red ray thing.
On the subject of aliens, specifically the 1979 film starring Sigourney Weaver, “Prometheus” is worth noticing. Ridley Scott, director of the original “Alien” film, returns to the universe where Ripley first uncovered the acid-spitting beasts to explore the origins of humanity. Or not—Scott has been notoriously mum about whether “Prometheus” is actually a predecessor to the film. Either way, the combination of Michael Fassbender (“Haywire,” “Shame”) and Noomi Rapace (“Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows,” the Swedish “Millennium series” films) should ensure the film is at least well acted.
Harry Potter fans looking to fill their hearts with something less crap-tastic than Stephanie Meyer’s melodramatic take on traditional bloodthirsty demons have turned to a series that will make its debut this spring. “The Hunger Games,” adapted from Suzanne Collins’ dystopian trilogy for teens and starring Jennifer Lawrence (“X-Men: First Class,” “The Beaver”) as Katniss and Josh Hutcherson (“The Kids are Alright,” “Journey to the Center of the Earth”) as Peeta, should leave fans satisfied before the start of the real-life dystopia in December.
Other book-to-film post-apocalyptic flicks continue this year by throwing zombies into the mix. Brad Pitt travels the world to investigate the survivors of the zombie apocalypse in “World War Z,” while Nicholas Hoult (“X-Men: First Class,” “About a Boy”) is just a zombie who shambles across love while hunting for brains.
Writer and director Terrence Malick is finally getting this whole movie release thing down. After a 20-year lull between “Days of Heaven” and “The Thin Red Line,” it’s only taken him a year to release a follow-up to his last movie. The yet untitled movie is about a man who finds love with a woman from his hometown after a marriage to a European woman falls apart. The cast is incredible—Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz, Javier Bardem, Amanda Peet, Michael Sheen—making this a likely contender for movie of the year on many people’s lists.
The same goes for “Lincoln,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis (“Nine,” “There Will Be Blood”) as Honest Abe himself, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“50/50,” “Inception”) as his son, Robert, and Jared Harris (“Fringe,” “Mad Men”) as Ulysses S. Grant. The film focuses on Lincoln’s life from the signing of the Thirteenth Amendment to his fatal encounter with John Wilkes-Booth.
In the too-weird-to-be-bad category, “The Great Gatsby” and “Magic Mike” deserve crowns. Fans of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s original book about the exuberant life of Jay Gatsby were delighted to hear that Leonardo DiCaprio (“J. Edgar,” “Inception”) would play the titular role with Carey Mulligan (“Shame,” “Drive”) as his love interest, but then director Baz Luhrmann announced the film would be shot in 3D. That was the weirdest film news of the year, at least until Steven Soderbergh announced he would direct a film loosely based on Channing Tatum’s (“The Vow,” “Haywire”) former stripping career right here in Tampa starring Tatum himself.
Breakups, lulls and solo careers aside, the music world is buzzing with comebacks in 2012. Morrissey, No Doubt, Black Sabbath, The Shins, Pearl Jam and Queens of the Stone Age all have new albums set to release. MGMT will look to live up to their 2007 debut album, “Oracular Spectacular,” after dropping the ball with “Congratulations” in 2010. A Fine Frenzy, fronted by the incendiary Alison Sudol, will look to make a big splash this spring with a yet untitled album. Despite being featured in major motion pictures and television shows, the band is still hunting for wide commercial success.
After numerous mixtapes, singles, guest appearances and writing credits, it’s almost hard to believe that Frank Ocean has yet to release a debut album. The R&B singer will look to change that with a commercial release on Def Jam this spring. Much of the same can be said for the Weeknd. The Canadian artist announced on Twitter in December that he would package his three mixtapes as “The Trilogy” for a commercial release in the U.S. sometime this year.
A follow-up to Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Watch the Throne” is the will-it-or-won’t-it album of 2012. Jay-Z hinted that the duo would team up for a sequel sometime soon, saying that they were in the right place creatively, but he could not confirm whether it would happen this year. Let’s hope it does.
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TV:
Game of Thrones: Will the Starks avenge their fallen patriarch, or will the family find themselves fragmented even further? Find out in the second season of HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s fantasy saga.
Comic Book Men: Kevin Smith retreats from the silver screen to direct a reality series about guys in a comic book store. Let’s hope it’s more “Clerks” and less “Cop Out.”
Veep: Admit it, there’s a little part of your brain that wishes John McCain would have won the 2008 election so you could watch Sarah Palin implode as VP. Now you can watch Julia Louis-Dreyfus do it on HBO.
Girls: What if Judd Apatow had directed “Sex in the City?” You’d get “Girls,” a new HBO series that follows a small group of friends in their 20s in NYC.
House of Lies: Don Cheadle doing comedy. Kristen Bell in her skivvies. Jean-Ralphio from “Parks and Recreation.” Need we say more?
The River: Bear with us for a second. What if “The Blair Witch Project” was an hour-long TV show? No? You might not like this new ABC series then.
Life’s Too Short: It stars Warwick Davis, the dwarf who’s played almost every significant short character in every movie since Star Wars. Also, Ricky Gervais.
Video Games:
Twisted Metal: It’s a return to the series roots as Calypso’s tournament. Sweet Tooth turns into a giant robot a la Transformers. An HD version of “Twisted Metal Black” is included for free. This game drips with awesome.
Mass Effect III: Bioware is set to complete Commander Shepard’s trilogy. A four-player co-op mode and an enhanced cover system will help him beat the Reapers once and for all, and deal with the traitorous Cerberus.
Halo 4: And you thought Master Chief was lost in space. Shooting elements take a back seat to mystery, discovery and exploration in the first of a new trilogy for the Xbox 360
Diablo III: The day fans have waited 12 long years for is almost here. Diablo’s minions are once again threatening Sanctuary, and it’s up to you, unnamed warrior, to send him back to hell.
Grand Theft Auto V: The most controversial game of all time returns with a recreated version of Los Angeles, renamed Los Santos. Rockstar says that this is its most vast game yet. GTAV is sure to delight fans and anger children’s advocate groups all over the U.S.[/box_dark]
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