Big movies heat up summer

It's good news for film fans this summer with plenty of impressive releases to look forward to, despite the credit crisis.

In fact, the shaky economy seems to be bringing out the best in the film studios, and 2009's total movie gross is expected to exceed last year's total.

According to Boxofficemojo.com, total film gross is approaching $3.7 billion (Dh13.5bn) – almost 13 per cent above the same time last year. Brandon Gray, president of the website, predicts that by December the industry could bring in about $10bn.

This year has already seen a series of box-office hits in the form of Monsters Vs Aliens, Fast and Furious, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Trek. They are the four top-selling films to date worldwide, raking in $345.6m, $336m, $310.4m and $267.9 respectively. Now Hollywood is playing it safe with sequels and big name stars for the summer.

Releases that could potentially beat the top four include the follow-up to 2007's Transformers – which brought in $708.8m worldwide – titled Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And there's no doubt millions of fans will be rushing to catch the sixth instalment of the Harry Potter phenomenon, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The franchise has made a staggering $4.5bn to date.

Then there's Johnny Depp's latest Public Enemies, Inglorious Basterds, starring Brad Pitt, and the hotly tipped Pixar animation, Up.


June

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

Directed by: Michael Bay

Production budget: $200 million

Genre: Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi

Shia LaBeouf reprises the role of Sam Witwicky, the human caught in the war between Autobots and Decepticons. In this sequel, Witwicky discovers the origins of the Transformers after receiving visions from a remaining piece of the Allspark. Little does he know it will take him to Egypt, where the evil Decepticons await him.

Rating: PG-15

YEAR ONE

Directed by: Harold Ramis

Production budget: $75m

Genre: Comedy

Hollywood funnyman Jack Black and Juno star Michael Cera play Zed and Oh, two Neanderthals who embark on a journey through their ancient world after being banished from their homeland. Along the way, they encounter various mythological characters.

Rating: PG-13

SERAPHINE

Directed by: Martin Provost

Production budget: Undisclosed

Genre: World/Drama/War

Nominated for nine Césars (the French Oscars), Seraphine follows the story of Séraphine de Senlis (Yolande Moreau), a simple housekeeper whose brilliantly colourful canvases adorn some of the most famous galleries in the world. Wilhelm Uhde, a German art critic and collector (Ulrich Ukur) discovers her paintings while she is working for him as a maid in the early part of the 20th Century. A poignant and unexpected relationship develops between the avant-garde art dealer and the visionary cleaning lady.

Rating: PG-13

UP

Directed by: Peter Docter

Production budget: $175m

Genre: Animation/Comedy

The same company that brought us Wall-E and Ratatouille is back this summer with another highly anticipated animated film. Edward Asner stars as the voice of Carl Fredricksen, a retired 78-year-old balloon seller who always dreamed of visiting South America. When developers threaten to move him into an assisted living home, Carl decides to use 10,000 balloons to make the house fly. Just when his dream starts to come true, one thing goes notably wrong: he unwittingly takes an eight-year-old wilderness explorer named Russell with him.

Rating: PG

THE PROPOSAL

Directed by: Anne Fletcher

Production budget: Undisclosed

Genre: Comedy

Sandra Bullock stars as Margaret Tate, the editor-in-chief of a book publishing company, who forces her assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her to avoid being deported to Canada. He grudgingly accepts to get the position of editor within the company. Unfortunately, when the government investigates, the two are forced to spend the weekend with his parents in Alaska to sell the lie.

Rated: PG-13

LAND OF THE LOST

Directed by: Brad Silberling

Production budget: $100m

Genre: Adventure/Comedy

Based on the 1974 television series of the same name, Land of the Lost stars Will Ferrell as has-been scientist Dr Rick Marshall who finds himself sucked into a strange, alternate world inhabited by dinosaurs and scary, green humanoids known as Sleestaks. With no weapons and few skills, will he and his buddies be able to survive?

Rating: PG-133

July

THE UGLY TRUTH

Directed by: Robert Luketic

Production budget: Undisclosed

Genre: Comedy/Romance

Could this be the chick flick of the summer? Grey's Anatomy sweetheart Katherine Heigl teams up with Gerard Butler for the ultimate battle of the sexes. Heigl plays a romantically challenged morning show producer whose search for Mr Perfect has left her hopelessly single. She's in for a rude awakening when she is teamed up with Mike Chadway (Butler), a hardcore TV personality who promises to spill the ugly truth on what makes men and women tick.

Rating: 18

G-FORCE

Directed by: Hoyt Yeatman

Production budget: Undisclosed

Genre: Adventure/Animation/Family

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer brings his first 3-D film to the big screen with G-Force, a comedy adventure about the latest evolution of a covert government programme to train animals to work in espionage. Armed with the latest high-tech spy equipment, these highly trained guinea pigs discover that the fate of the world is in their paws. Stars the voice of Nicolas Cage.

Rating: PG

PUBLIC ENEMIES

Directed by: Michael Mann

Production budget: $80 million

Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller

Johnny Depp returns to the big screen to play John Dillinger, a charismatic bank robber whose lightning raids in the Depression era made him the number one target of J Edgar Hoover's fledgling FBI and its top agent, Melvin Purvis (played Christian Bale), and a folk hero to much of the downtrodden public. French actress Marion Cotillard also stars.

Rating: 18

HARRY POTTER AND THALF BLOOD PRINCE

Directed by: David Yates

Production budget: $200 million

Genre: Action/Adventure/Fantasy

In the sixth instalment of the Harry Potter series, Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. Meanwhile, a lot of love is also in the air. Who's going to fall for who? All shall be revealed.

Rating: PG

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS

Directed by: Carlos Saldanha

Production budget: $90 million

Genre: Adventure/Animation/Comedy

The third and final instalment of the Ice Age film series sees Manny, Sid, Diego, Ellie, Eddie, Crash and Scrat encounter a dinosaur population, which survived extinction in its tropical paradise that existed below the thick layers – until now.

Rating: G

August

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS

Directed by: Quentin Tarantino

Production budget: $90 million

Genre: Action/Drama/War

It may have received mixed reviews from critics at the recent Cannes Film Festival, but because Inglorious Basterds is directed by Quentin Tarantino and stars Brad Pitt, it is bound to achieve big ticket sales all the same. Here, a band of US soldiers facing death by firing squad for their misdeeds are given a chance to redeem themselves by heading into the perilous no-man's lands of Nazi-occupied France on a suicide mission for the Allies.

Rating: 18

PONYO ON THE CLIFF BY THE SEA

Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki

Production budget: Undisclosed

Genre: Animation/Family/Fantasy

Legendary Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, responsible for 2001's award-winning Spirited Away as well as Howl's Moving Castle in 2004, returns with Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. Voiced by Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Cate Blanchett and Liam Neeson for the English version of the film, Ponyo follows a baby fish/mermaid, Ponyo, who wants to become a human girl. In pursuing her goal, she befriends a five-year-old human boy, S?suke. Sure, it sounds like the Japanese version of The Little Mermaid, but Miyazaki's painfully precise attention to detail will leave animation lovers bedazzled.

Rating: G

JULIE & JULIA

Directed by: Nora Ephron

Production budget: Undisclosed

Genre: Drama

Julie & Julia depicts events in the life of famed chef Julia Child, played by Meryl Streep. Amy Adams appears as Julie Powell, a frustrated secretary who embarks on a year-long culinary quest to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She chronicles her trials and tribulations in a blog that catches on with the food crowd.

Rating: PG

SHORTS

Directed by: Robert Rodriguez

Production budget: Undisclosed

Genre: Family/Comedy/Adventure

There's a new product in town, called the Black Box, which is sweeping the nation as the ultimate communication and do-it-all gadget. Other than keeping his parents employed, however, the Black Box has done nothing for 11-year-old Toe Thompson, who just wants to make a few friends – until a mysterious rainbow-coloured rock falls from the sky, hits him in the head and changes everything.

Rating: PG

GI JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA

Directed by: Stephen Sommers

Production budget: $170m

Genre: Action/Adventure

Paramount Pictures and Hasbro, whose previous collaboration was Transformers, return for what is set to become another big hit for the studio, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Set 10 years in the future in locations ranging from the Egyptian desert to deep below the polar ice caps, this film is an origin story portraying the rise of the Cobra Organisation. It focuses on Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord's (Marlon Wayans) induction into the GI Joe Team. Dennis Quaid, Christopher Eccleston and Sienna Miller also star.

Rating: 18

TAKING WOODSTOCK

Directed by: Ang Lee

Production budget: $35m

Genre: Comedy

Award-winning filmmaker Ang Lee directs this story inspired by the true story of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the generation-defining Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in the summer of 1969.

Rating: PG-13

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