PHILADELPHIA - By sheer numbers, the caped crusaders, masked crimebusters and spandex-ed superheroes lining up at the movie box office for the summer season - which begins next Friday when "The Avengers" opens - has to be the largest gathering of comicbook-spawned dudes (and dudettes) in the history of summer movies.
In "The Avengers" alone, there are, of course, Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye and Thor, brought together by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to save the world from a demented Norse god (Thor's evil sibling, Loki).
By the time Labor Day comes around, the multiplexes will have been home to not just the previously mentioned gang of Marvel Comics neurotics, but to Spider-Man ("The Amazing Spider-Man"), Batman ("The Dark Knight Rises") and those alien-tracking G-men ("Men in Black 3"). So, if you're counting the openings, that's a new franchise crammed with old standbys; a reboot with a replacement web-slinger (Andrew Garfield replacing Toby Maguire); the third brooding Bat-installment starring Christian Bale, and Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones back in black, 10 years after their last caper with sinister ETs. Pricey sequels, one and all, and if any of these $125-million to $200-million-budgeted behemoths tank, studio chieftains will be sweating bullets. (They'll be sweating bullets anyway.)
But wait, there's more.
Summer 2012 is crammed with sequels, with spinoffs, with remakes, with book and old TV show adaptations and reimaginings of fairy tales and myths. In short, you're going to have to search high, and low, for a film that actually began life as an original idea. Hollywood isn't called an industry for nothing and the corporate conglomerates that oversee the studios want to ensure that what has thus far been an up year in attendance, and revenues (thanks in no small part to "The Hunger Games"), continues that way. Which doesn't necessarily mean there won't be surprises on screen in the coming months, or satisfying filmmaking or innovation and invention. Just that you may have to look mighty hard to find it.
Here's a list of some high-profile releases opening between May 4 and Labor Day, and the reasons we might want to see them.
"The Avengers" (Friday) The Wikipedia entry on this Marvel/ Disney release ("the sixth installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe") says that development of the little indie came together with "a grant from Merrill Lynch." Kind of like workshopping your screenplay at Sundance, or taking a screenwriting retreat at the Yaddo colony, isn't it? The superhero confab includes Robert Downey Jr., as Tony Stark/ Iron Man, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/ Captain America, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/ The Hulk, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/ Hawkeye. It's looking huge. - Steven Rea
"The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" (May 4) Cash-strapped British pensioners (including Bill Nighy, Judi Dench) retire on the cheap to ramshackle hotel in India, run by Dev Patel. John Madden ("Shakespeare In Love") directs a stellar cast, including Tom Wilkinson and Maggie Smith. - Gary Thompson
"Dark Shadows" (May 11) "Reveal yourself, tiny impostor!" Barnabas Collins says to the singer in the TV set in what may be the only laugh the trailer for the Tim Burton-directed, Johnny Depp-starring has to offer. A big screen redo of the shlocky small-screen series about an 18th-century vampire who finds himself, confusingly, in the 1970s. With Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Moretz, and Mrs. Burton, aka Helena Bonham Carter. - S.R.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/27/2771262/the-avengers-opens-super-summer.html
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