And so another decade comes to a close. Come with us down memory lane as we recall the snakes-and-ladders-esque ups and downs of Hollywood’s movers and shakers from 2000-2010.

2009 certainly brought us a few cinematic corkers, from sci-fi epic Avatar to comic-book crunching goodness from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and Watchmen. But it wasn’t all wham, bam and explosions – will 2010 be a year of smarter movies? Judging this list… maybe.

Hold on to your ten-gallon hats and strap on your spurs (actually don’t, some things really are best left to the privacy of your own home), because Paramount’s planning to revamp the western genre in a big way.

“It is better,” said the essayist and moralist Joseph Joubert, “to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.” In the spirit of such a great man that we just found out about on Wikipedia, we present you, gentle reader, with the first in what may well be a series of debates on the state of modern film.

What are you more tired of, the phrase ‘Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’ or the words ‘vampire movie’? We’re not sure either, but for better or for worse, it would appear that we’re going to be hearing a lot more of both.

It’s a dream so crazy that even the infamous Man of La Mancha would be impressed. Cinema’s favourite dreamer Terry Gilliam is forging ahead with his abandoned project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which was abandoned in 2000 after a series of truly unfortunate events.

There are rumors floating around that the sexiest pirate on earth Jack Sparrow, will be making a return to our screens in a fourth instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean…

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton’s seventh film together, Alice in Wonderland is set for release early next year. As we wait in anticipation for a trippy tale of a girl in wonderland and a madhatter, let’s refresh our memories with the six films which helped to establish one of the strongest director/actor relationships in Hollywood.

Michael Mann’s expertly crafted tale of Depression-era gangster John Dillinger’s final exploits looks good on paper, with standout performances from Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. But it fails to get to the heart of one of America’s craftiest criminals.

As our economy spirals into the abyss of recession with no hope of returning to good health any time soon, everyone is cutting their budget.It’s the perfect time for Hollywood directors to start economising too. Not on film quality, but on choice of protagonists. Where they can’t afford the original A-lister, there’s a number of cheaper alternatives for them to choose from.