Some of Hollywood's most popular stars will be trying to overcome advancing age and/or declining box office take during the year's biggest movie season.
It's summertime at the movies, but the story behind the screen concerns actors in the autumn of their careers. Some of the most popular - and oldest - box-office stars of the past 40 years are pushing to remain relevant in Hollywood's busiest season.
Harrison Ford (60) is chillin' with the hip-hop culture and young stud Josh Hartnett. Sean Connery, 72, is going the comic-book cinema route. Arnold Schwarzenegger, 55, pledged that he would be back as the Terminator, and not a moment too soon. Sylvester Stallone, 56, is resorting to scaring children in a Spy Kids sequel to salvage his career.
As audiences stay young - the largest ticket market is ages 15 to 24 - the movies stay young with them. Now the movie stars that older folks grew up admiring will either adapt or fade away. If that means being typecast as an indestructible android, or leaning on the shoulders of MTV generation favorites, so be it.
This summer is also marked by career rehabilitation for the stars between the MTV and the Metamucil generations. Jim Carrey, Angelina Jolie and Will Smith have a lot of years left in them, but they haven't had box-office hits in a while. After detouring into drama (in Jolie's case, that includes her personal life), all three actors are returning to what made them famous. In a summer marked by a record number of sequels, Jolie and Smith are doing slam-bang followups to successes; Carrey is doing his wild-and-crazy thing.
While action sequels The Matrix Reloaded and X-Men 2 count their money this weekend, be assured that something for every taste is coming to theaters soon. Release dates are always subject to change.
May 23
Bruce Almighty - Finally, Carrey sets aside his fantasy of an Academy Award nomination and goes for laughs again. He plays a self-centered guy bestowed with powers on loan from God ( Morgan Freeman). The preview trailer is a riot, with Carrey basking in his abilities and Freeman patiently awaiting the life lesson that will kick in. No doubt this will be the most successful comedy of the summer.
The In-Laws - Bad idea No. 1: Remaking a 1979 gem that's funnier than most comedies today. Bad idea No. 2: Believing that Michael Douglas can be as hilarious as Peter Falk and replacing Alan Arkin with Albert Brooks. Bad idea No. 3: Opening this ill-advised project the weekend that Carrey shows he wants to be funny again.
May 30
Finding Nemo - Pixar's animation wizards have done it again, creating a gorgeous undersea adventure with talking fish, smart humor and a father-son relationship stronger than you'll find in many live-action movies. Brooks voices Marlin, a clownfish searching the ocean for his lost son. Ellen DeGeneres almost steals the show, voicing an exceedingly forgetful ally. This one already has a slot reserved on my top 10 list for 2003.
The Italian Job - Mark Wahlberg is becoming the remake king, after Planet of the Apes, The Truth About Charlie (based on Charade) and this update of a 1969 caper starring Michael Caine. Wahlberg is the ringleader of a heist involving a huge traffic jam in Los Angeles. Edward Norton co-stars, although he made it clear that it's only to fulfill contractual obligations.
Wrong Turn - Hollywood can't let a month go by without a little gore. Road-tripping teenagers play Spam-in-a-cabin when a wrong turn in West Virginia leads them to inbred cannibals.
June 6
2 Fast 2 Furious - The hot rods won't be refueling with Vin Diesel for this sequel to the 2001 hit The Fast and the Furious. Paul Walker returns as an undercover cop infiltrating Miami's street-racing circuit, but the real stars are those tricked-out compact cars and their stunt drivers. Theater owners cheered the preview trailer at their ShoWest convention, knowing the box office traffic jam this movie will create.
Prozac Nation - 2 serious 2 slow for summertime. Christina Ricci plays a first-year Harvard student suffering from depression. Wait until she sees the box office chart.
June 13
Rugrats Go Wild - Two animated Nickelodeon franchises team up for a movie. The Rugrats series, with its precocious infants, is a sure thing after two films grossed more than $175-million. It offers a boost to The Wild Thornberrys, whose 2002 movie barely broke even in theaters. Kids control the box office in summertime.
Hollywood Homicide - Sony could continue the alliteration by adding "hip-hop" to the title. Ford and Hartnett play mismatched cop partners investigating the mass slaying of a famous rap music group. Expect Lethal Weapon-style banter and a radio-friendly soundtrack. Ford is obviously reaching to the youth market, a good idea because his last hit was Air Force One six summers ago.
Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd - This followup to Dumb and Dumber would be a smash if Carrey and Jeff Daniels returned. However, this is a prequel to their 1994 comedy, showing the two dimwits in high school. Eric Christian Olsen and Derek Richardson are dead ringers for Carrey and Daniels, but without the Farrelly brothers behind the cameras, it'll be just another dumb teen movie.
From Justin to Kelly - On the other hand, this could be an entirely new breed of dumb teen movie. First American Idol Kelly Clarkson and second-place Justin Guarini meet during spring break in Miami and sing their way to love. Sending them to spring break in The Real Cancun would be more interesting.
June 20
The Hulk - The next Marvel Comics super hero invading theaters is the Hulk, a.k.a. Dr. David Banner, whose experiments make him a green, 10-foot-tall behemoth when he gets angry. No word on whether he's incredible or not. Eric Bana (Chopper, Black Hawk Down) plays Banner and, in a way, the Hulk; his face has been digitally added to the computer-generated giant. Nick Nolte co-stars as Banner's father, the root of his aggression. St. Pete Beach resident Michael France shares the screenwriting credit after lengthy Writers Guild of America arbitration.
Alex & Emma - An author ( Luke Wilson) suffering from writer's block must complete a novel in 30 days to pay off gambling debts. He hires a stenographer ( Kate Hudson) to speed up the process, creating a 19th century romance and making it real in modern life. Rob Reiner directs, so it's probably funnier than it sounds. But any movie getting its ideas from Fyodor Dostoevsky is a tough sell in the summer.
June 27
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle - I may lose my film criticism license for this, but the preview trailer makes this look like great fun. Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu return as the crime-fighting hotties, with Bernie Mac acting like Bosley in the background. Demi Moore looks stunning in her comeback as a fallen "Angel." The preview trailer is a cartoonish string of explosions, stunts, booty shaking and butt-kicking. 'Nuff said.
28 Days Later - This is the most intriguing offbeat release of the summer, an apocalyptic zombie thriller from director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, The Beach), whose visual style is always exciting. A handful of survivors after a killer virus epidemic try to preserve the species, but infected ghouls have different ideas. Shot in grainy digital video, it may be too arty for the horror crowd.
July 2
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - Schwarzenegger goes back to the future to rescue his movie popularity. Ten years after the events of T2, computer hacker John Connor (Nick Stahl, replacing Edward Furlong) is being hunted by a female Terminatrix (Kristanna Loken) before he can grow up to destroy the Skynet cyber-system. Ah-nuld plays another state-of-the-art Terminator assigned to protect him. Money in the bank, but it better be with a reported budget of $170-million.
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde - Reese Witherspoon alone carried Sweet Home Alabama to $127-million at the box office. The sequel to a funnier, more popular hit should do just fine. Witherspoon reprises her role as Elle Woods, a comically fashionable Harvard Law School graduate arguing for animal rights in Washington, D.C. First on the un-endangered list is her Chihuahua, Bruiser.
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas - Disney sank with the animated sea adventures Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet. DreamWorks thinks it can buck that trend with celebrity voices ( Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michelle Pfeiffer) and a recognizable hero. The action crowd will prefer T3; the swashbucklers will wait for . . .
July 9
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl - The second Disney theme park attraction turned into a movie (after The Country Bears) stars Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, a cheeky buccaneer battling the dreaded pirate Barbossa ( Geoffrey Rush). The preview trailer is exciting, with blazing cannons, heaving bosoms and ghostly special effects. The next theme park movie will be The Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy at Thanksgiving.
July 11
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Another comic book series goes live action, this one featuring a fantasy mix of literary heroes saving England from a madman. Sean Connery stars as adventurer Allen Quatermain, Stuart Townsend plays ageless Dorian Gray, joined by actors playing Captain Nemo, Tom Sawyer, the Invisible Man and Dracula's squeeze, Mina Harkin. The cast creaks, and no movie should require CliffsNotes.
July 18
Bad Boys II - Will Smith used to be king of the Fourth of July weekend until Wild Wild West went south. Now he's working his way back to that crown, teaming with Martin Lawrence (who needs a hit) for a sequel to their 1995 smash. They're narcotics cops trailing a rave-drug ring in Miami. Director Michael Bay (Armageddon, Con Air) knows how to make mayhem appealing.
How to Deal - Teen fave Mandy Moore (A Walk to Remember) plays a romantically disillusioned teenager finally meeting Master Right ( Trent Ford). The PG-13 rating for "sexual content, drug material, language and some thematic elements" suggests that Moore is growing up fast onscreen.
Johnny English - Rowan Atkinson (Bean, Scooby Doo) jumps on the Austin Powers bandwagon, playing a British secret agent bungling his recovery of stolen crown jewels. Atkinson's brand of humor is an acquired taste that U.S. movie audiences haven't felt like acquiring.
July 25
Seabiscuit - By this time, moviegoers may be ready for serious, uplifting entertainment. They'll find it in this true story of a horse, trainer ( Chris Cooper), jockey ( Tobey Maguire) and owner ( Jeff Bridges), all dismissed as worthless, who unite to become national heroes during the Depression. The extended preview at ShoWest gave me the kind of goose bumps you get only with the promise of a great film.
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over - Robert Rodriguez continues his tale of pint-sized spies and their intrepid parents ( Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino). Yes, viewers will need to wear special glasses to enjoy the 3-D computer-generated effects. Stallone (!) co-stars as the Toymaker, whose virtual reality game traps children around the world, making the movie an extended commercial for the real-life video game.
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life - The first movie made a third of its $131-million total during the opening weekend, when moviegoers believed the hype. Not even Internet geeks had much positive to say about it later. Jolie returns as a sexy adventurer on a quest to find Pandora's box, which will be only the second-worst opening of this week.
Aug. 1
American Wedding - Jim Levinstein (Jason Biggs), who turned pastry into porn in American Pie, then Super Glued his privates in American Pie 2, gets married to the band-camp sexpot ( Alyson Hannigan). Imagine the bachelor party with Stifler (Seann William Scott) calling the shots. Think of the humiliating advice Jim's father (Eugene Levy) can provide. Just please, please don't make us watch the honeymoon.
Gigli - The buzzards are circling for this one. Sweethearts Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck co-star in a romantic gangland drama that has gone through three title changes and countless rumors of creative difficulties. They play criminals ordered to kidnap the mentally challenged brother of a prosecutor to keep their boss out of prison. The movie should keep everyone out of theaters.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - This is interesting. In an era when movies fail fast and move on to home video, Miramax is reviving George Clooney's biography of game-show host (and alleged CIA agent) Chuck Barris. The movie failed to click with audiences during the past holiday and awards seasons, but there's something admirable about such rare persistence.
Aug. 8
S.W.A.T. - The 1970s television show gets a makeover, with Samuel L. Jackson taking over for Steve Forrest as Hondo Harrelson, leader of the LAPD's elite tactical force. Colin Farrell (Phone Booth) co-stars in the late Robert Urich's role as a hotshot officer. This is a wise choice for a remake, a familiar title that can look like every other action flick and nobody will complain.
Shaolin Soccer - This subtitled import from Hong Kong looks cheesy-fun. A former soccer star and a martial arts master blend their skills into a game with rocketing shots and gravity-defying moves. Call it Crouching Beckham, Hidden Pele.
Matchstick Men - Nicolas Cage and Sam Rockwell (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) are criminals planning a heist, interrupted when the former's teenage daughter ( Alison Lohman, White Oleander) comes to visit. Directed by Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down).
THE REST OF AUGUST
The remaining movies until Labor Day appear to be junk intended to strip teenagers of their summertime allowances. Because Labor Day falls early (Sept. 1), studios won't release anything of merit late in August to avoid competing with back-to-school plans.
Instead, there's a lot of horror: Freddy vs. Jason (Aug. 15), with dueling maniacs from the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th series; Highwayman (Aug. 27), starring Jim Caviezel as a vigilante stalking a serial killer; and Jeepers Creepers 2 (Aug. 29), in which a cannibal dines on high school students.
There's also another Jackie Chan adventure, The Medallion (Aug. 15); the Rocky-on-skateboards tale Grind (Aug. 22); and Lisa Kudrow finding new friends as a hip-hop music producer in Marci X (Aug. 22). Teen favorites Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy get comedy-star vehicles, with Kutcher dating My Boss' Daughter (Aug. 22) and Murphy babysitting for Uptown Girls (Aug. 15). Like I said: a lot of horror.
