‘Ghostbusters’ to ‘Jason Bourne’: Hollywood suits up for summer of sequels (and reboots)

It promises to be another summer scorcher at the global box office as Hollywood brings out the big guns for a season of sequels and reboots on big screen.

While action films such as ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Jason Bourne’ bring a new lease on life of standalone stories and franchises thought long forgotten, a reboot such as ‘Ghostbusters’ resurrects a classic that many feel should have been left alone.

Even as purists can hold the debate until next summer, we are sure, it is definitely the time to catch up on the classics that started it all and perhaps even our love for summer at the cinemas.

Independence Day (1996)

Picking up where the first film left off, ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ invades cinema screens this Eid Al Fitr weekend in UAE. But if you are nostalgic about the Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum camaraderie, then the 1996 smash hit is just what the weekend in demands.

Disparate groups of people battle a devastating attack on planet Earth by a seemingly powerful extraterrestrial race from an unknown origin.

American heroes Smith and Goldblum fly in to save the day and make time to punch aliens in the face and smoke a ceremonial cigar. What’s not to love here?

Ghostbusters (1984)
 

If there’s something strange in the neighbourhood, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!

And by this we don’t mean the reboot starring current queen of mishap comedy, Melissa McCarthy, but rather the original gang that burst on to our screens back in the early ’80s with bucketloads of paranormal slime.

The 1984 American supernatural horror comedy film was written by and starred Dan Aykroyd as one of three eccentric parapsychologists who start a ghost-catching business in New York City.

Aykroyd was perfectly supported by Bill Murray and Harold Ramis as the ghost-fighting trio, while Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis co-star as a client and her neighbor, and Ernie Hudson as the Ghostbusters’ first recruit.

Get a hold of this classic before the July 14 reboot releases across UAE with McCarthy playing a paranormal researcher, who teams up with a physicist (Kristen Wiig), a nuclear engineer (Kate McKinnon) and a subway worker (Leslie Jones) try to rid New York of ghosts that can possess humans.

Star Trek (1966 onwards)

Moving away from the conventional movie marathon to catch up on these epic summer sequels, we are suggesting a look back upon the space opera that started it all, which has spanned five decades of television series and films.

Yes indeed, before ‘Star Trek Beyond’ hits the UAE screens on July 21, grab hold of the William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy classic that saw the voyages of USS Enterprise that embarked on a five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

‘Star Trek Beyond’, which is the latest installment in the franchise, sees the USS. Enterprise crew explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a mysterious new enemy who puts them and everything the Federation stands for to the test.

The Bourne Trilogy (2002 onwards)

Yes, yes, we are crazed fans of ‘The Bourne’ series and what better time is there to hunker down with a tub of popcorn and plug in a movie marathon of this trilogy before ‘Jason Bourne’ releases in UAE.

If you were fans of the books by Robert Ludlum, ‘The Bourne Identity’ that released in 2002 only got us hooked on even further. Matt Damon took on the titular role in this spy thriller of a man suffering from memory loss as he attempts to discover his identity amidst a clandestine conspiracy within the Central Intelligence Agency.

The box office powerhouse was followed up by ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ and ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’.

We will prefer to whizz past number four, ‘The Bourne Legacy’ but pop that into the DVD if you must and catch up on the adrenaline as Damon returns in and as ‘Jason Bourne’.

Ice Age (2002 onwards)

Another 2002 classic following ‘The Bourne Identity’ but this time targeting the family audience, who can forget this buddy adventure produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox.

The original animated film featured the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary and Chris Wedge and was nominated at the 75th Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature.

It shows the adventures of a sloth named Sid, a mammoth named Manny and a few other animals when the Earth was being flooded with glaciers.

The success of this film prompted another three films in the franchise including ‘Ice Age: The Meltdown’ in 2006, ‘Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs’ in 2009 and ‘Ice Age: Continental Drift’ in 2012 with a fifth film ‘Ice Age: Collision Course’ releasing across UAE cinemas on August 4.

Let the kids indulge in their own movie marathon sleepover this summer as they relive the moments of the group of mammals surviving the Paleolithic ice age.

Film five will see Scrat’s epic pursuit of his elusive acorn catapults him outside of Earth, where he accidentally sets off a series of cosmic events that transform and threaten the planet.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.