#10 GI Joe: Retaliation

File under ‘Does Anyone Remember Asking For This?’… That said, we’re looking forward to the follow up to 2010’s basically fine Team America rip-off purely because of The Rock’s brilliantly amped up on-set tweets (‘Combat Boots To Asses has officially begun’) and the Goofy as Fuck grin he flashes at the end of his intro to the trailer. Oh go on then, bring it..

 

#9 Rise of the Guardians

Tragically not another film about owls (we like owls), but why have owls when you can have Santa? And just to sweeten the deal, how’s about a little Tooth Fairy, and a shot of Easter Bunny? No? What if that Bunny had the voice of HUGH JACKMAN? Nothing with Huge Act Man in could be bad. Dreamworks Animation are on something of a hot streak as it is (Kung Fu Panda 2, How To Train Your Dragon), so this tale of the aforementioned fantasy trio laying the smackdown on the Boogeyman should be a pretty safe bet.

 

#8 Wrath of the Titans

Remember when we said ‘Superhero Films to See’? Well, as a change of pace, how about a ‘DEMIGOD film to NOT See’? You can go ahead and ignore that ranking number, just treat this as a comic interlude. Hopefully you don’t need us to tell you why this sequel is nuts-out, lick-the-walls retarded, but allow us to lay it out for you anyway; it’s the sequel to a remake to an adaptation of an ancient legend. Neither the original film nor the legend have sequels. The plot of Wrath of the Titans is, we shit you not, Perseus coming out of retirement to do One Last Job. Let’s just take some comfort in the knowledge that Toby Kebbell, Ralph Fiennes and Bill Nighy will all have collected lovely big pay cheques. And at least that tagline – ‘Feel the wrath’ – has finally given us a marketing hook for our Tim Roth Petting Zoo.

 

#7 Judge Dredd

‘I do look back on Judge Dredd as a real missed opportunity. It seemed that lots of fans had a problem with Dredd removing his helmet, because he never does in the comic books. But for me it is more about wasting such great potential there was in that idea; just think of all the opportunities there were to do interesting stuff with the Cursed Earth scenes. It didn’t live up to what it could have been. It probably should have been much more comic, really humorous, and fun. What I learned out of that experience was that we shouldn’t have tried to make it Hamlet; it’s more Hamlet and Eggs…’ – Sly Stallone, on 1995’s Judge Dredd. Has there been a more necessary remake since The Punisher?

 

#6 John Carter

We’ll just out and say it: who IS John Carter? The trailer arrogantly seems to assume that we know. Turns out he’s in some books, and from Mars, except at first he’s not, and Mars looks really Arizona-y. And there’s a war. All you really need to know is that this is the first not-Pixar feature by Andrew Stanton, who only directed, Oh I d’no, WALL-E and FINDING NEMO. And he seems really, really keen on the project. Trust his adorable teddy bear face.

 

#5 Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Some have said that the first one may have erred on the side of utter bollocks (it did), so we’ll forgive you for sighing in unison. But this has real potential, almost all of which lies in the hands of Neveldine and Taylor, the directorial duo behind the fully mental Crank, the even-more-mentaller Crank 2: High Voltage and the sorely underrated, possibly-even-more-mentaller-than-that-even Gamer. If you’re still scoffing, check this trailer out. We can’t be alone in thinking that looks pretty dope. Can we just call it Drive Angry 2: Bikez ‘n Skullz?

 

#4 The Amazing Spider-Man

The marketing for the latest outing from everyone’s favourite sexually repressed freelance photojournalist has been.. well it’s been bollocks, hasn’t it? But let’s not write this one off yet. Director Marc ‘500 Days‘ Webb has proved that he can handle the smouldering teen angst side of things, Garfield and Miss Stone are a safe pair of pairs of hands, and screenwriter James Vanderbilt slaved away with Fincher on the phenomenal screenplay for Zodiac. See? Nothing to worry ab – NO STEVE KLOVES STOP FIXING THE SCRIPT IT’S FINE IT’S NOT BROKEN WHY ARE YOU NO STEVE WHY ARE YOU FIXING IT???

 

#3 Chronicle

We love a good grubby indie original here at Best For Film. The only film on this list which isn’t a sequel or an adaptation, Chronicle is a ‘found footage’ flick with a twist; our three protagonists stumble upon an alien craft and gain superpowers. The twist? It’s Jackass the Movie if Steve-O took one too many knocks to the heads and went a bit Sylar-from-Heroes. The footage currently on Youtube is incredibly exciting, from the strikingly original trailer to a disturbing silent clip wherein our antagonist discovers a novel way to kill a spider..

 

#2 The Avengers

And so this year it happens: finally, the film with the most elaborate prequel network in the history of cinema is getting released. Bearing in mind his history of getting savagely dicked on by any and all major studios, it’s kind of incredible that our kid Joss Whedon actually took this behemoth on. We all know it’ll be good, because we’ve all seen Serenity, but what else can we expect? Spectacular set-pieces, Tony Stark being snarky, one of the others getting killed off (don’t fancy Hawkeye’s chances..) and, of course, Whedon getting fired before filming on the sequel starts.

 

#1 The Dark Knight Rises

We were getting bored of it all . Go on, you can say it. It’s alright. The constant drip feed of mostly uninspiring information. The hokey-looking on set pics. The lame, samey posters. The lackluster teaser trailer. ‘Operation Early Bird’, the PR stunt that was really just a ploy to put bums on IMAX seats. The fantastic video games that whetted our appetite for a different kind of Batman. Even our attitude to The Dark Knight, which has joined Pulp Fiction in the ranks of ‘surely they cant be that good’ films.
But then we got the trailer proper, and we realized how silly we’d been. SIX MONTHS ARE YOU KIDDING ME WE CANNOT DO THIS.

 

What are you looking forward to the most? Bats? Dredds? Petting Zoo? FEED US WITH YOUR COMMENT WORDS.