Hot Movies for 2007: Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Transformers & More

/ Adam Nash

Not my typical blog post, but I have been a movie vacuum for the past few months, after the birth of my second son.

All of a sudden, I found a reference on one blog to the new Transformers movie coming out this summer.  While I was never an action-figure fan, I loved the Transformers when I was growing up, and so I am extremely excited to see this movie come to the big screen.  I was nervous when I heard that it was going to be live-action, and not animated, but the trailer looks pretty good.

If you missed the 1980s, and need to read up on the Transformers, I continue to be amazed at the quality of the information on Wikipedia.  A friend of mine at eBay, Michael Morgan, has a feedback score of almost 2000 now selling & collecting GI Joe & Transformer action figures.   I know he must be excited about this one.

Since I’ve been in such a movie void that I missed this big movie, I decided to poke around and find out what other big movies are planned for 2007.   I’m delighted to share here a few of the movies that caught my eye for release this year:

(Dates borrowed from the blog, Cinematical)

Clearly, this list of movies tells you a little too much about my taste in blockbusters.  But please note, for the record, that after the living hell that was sitting through Pirates of the Carribean 2, I have already stockpiled at least 10 excuses on why I won’t be able to see #3 when it debuts this summer.   And as much as I liked Die Hard when it came out, I’m not sure I’m excited to see Bruce Willis reprise the role again this year.

A couple notes on the movies above, since a few might be unfamiliar to you:

  • Evan Almighty is a sequel to Bruce Almighty, but focused on the Steve Carrell character.  Since right now, I’m liking every show & movie Steve Carrell makes, I’m assuming this will be worth seeing.
  • Ratatouille is the new Pixar movie.  The movie focuses on a rat, living in Paris, who dreams of opening his own restaurant.  Did I mention it’s the new Pixar movie?

I am particularly excited about the new Spider-Man movie, and the new Harry Potter movie, both of which promise to be more complex and rich than the previous sequels.

Some people lament the current sequel-happy culture in Hollywood.  I have to admit, there are far too many self-serving, vapid sequels like Ocean’s Twelve (and now, this year, Ocean’s Thirteen) floating around for my taste.  Evan Almighty has the potential to be weak in this regard as well.

Still, it is so wonderful to get strong sequels to great franchises, like Spider-Man, I’d rather they spend more time on the next Spider-Man and Superman, and less time making movies about marginal superheroes like Daredevil, Elektra, and coming soon, Iron Man.

One movie not cited above for 2007 is the planned Wonder Woman movie, by Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire and Serenity fame.  This promises to be a great one, but although IMDB says 2007, since they haven’t even cast the part yet, it feels like this will be 2008 at best.

Enjoy!

5 thoughts on “Hot Movies for 2007: Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Transformers & More”

  1. Be careful with your expectations for the Transformers movie. If this post from someone who read an early draft of the script is even close to accurate (which the trailer indicates it probably is), this is going to be a travesty. He sums it up well at the end:

    “Masters of the Universe, Catwoman, Street Fighter, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Godzilla, Super Mario Brothers…. And now Transformers. The raping of my childhood is now complete.”

    The Wonder Woman movie, on the other hand, is going to be awesome. Joss still hasn’t finished writing the script, so 2008 would probably be an optimistic guess. But the mere fact that he’s taking his time to get it right is promising. And I’ve seen some of the potential costume sketches and they’re awesome!

  3. Ray,

    Don’t be so negative… Masters of the Universe I think happened before they really figured out how to do movie versions of these things. The rest of that list is pretty marginal compared to Superman, Spider-man, X-Men, etc which they have gotten more right than wrong. I expect the hit rate for these things to be 50/50 – I had hoped Hulk would be good, but it wasn’t.

    We’ll see. I think Wonder Woman will be good… unless Whedon tries to turn her too much into a feminist role model. She’s a comic book character, not a role model. He actually has hit the nail on the head by saying the essence of Wonder Woman is a type of naivete – she didn’t grow up with humanity, and so she is somewhat naive about the true nature of human evil. I think he’s going to do a great job based on prior work. Let’s hope.

    I’m also not a big fan of the fact that Wonder Woman can fly. When did that happen? And if she can fly, why does she have the invisible jet? 🙂

    Thanks for posting.
    Adam

  4. One of the main factors of whether or not a movie adaptation works is whether or not it conveys the “gist” of the original – the thing that made it cool in the first place. The fact that the Transformers movie is completely changing the personality of and relationship between the major characters tells me that Michael Bay really doesn’t understand the Transformers franchise at all.

    Wonder Woman can fly? [runs off to check the internet] Huh. Apparently she learned that she could ride the air currents in the 70s, and started actually flying in Justice League. Although, to be fair, Superman couldn’t fly originally either; he just had a wicked jump shot (leaping over buildings in a single bound, etc).

    Seeing a character evolve over time I can deal with, as long as it stays true to the essence of who the character is, and what they’re about. For a superhero that has been instilled with the powers of the Olympian Gods, flying isn’t inconceivable. But giving characters like Bumblebee a complete lobotomy and rewriting them from scratch… that’s just not right.

  5. Pingback: Hot Movies for 2008 « Psychohistory

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