[WATCH] Reviving dinosaurs for profit: 2015 in cinema

It’s hardly a surprise that the Hollywood crop of 2015 films will largely consists of sequels and adaptations of established properties – that much has been the case since the dawning of the 21st century.

But 2015 looks to be an even more bloated turn towards this unfortunately risk-free approach to storytelling, as a clutch of usual suspects will hold down the fort while more original fare attempts to elbow its way through the noise.

As if to emphasise the corporate takeover of mainstream cinema by a central entity, parent company Disney will be delivering a double-whammy of their big guns, with the Marvel Studios superhero crossover sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron heading to cinemas in May, with their recently purchased property Star Wars: The Force Awakens bookending the blockbuster year in December.

Both films will be predictable box office smashes, and enjoy a healthily purring buzz to this day, ever since their respective trailers were released to much gushing fanfare earlier in 2014, despite Marvel’s trailer being pre-empted by an early online leak.

Though the execs over at Marvel have – somewhat ominously – mapped out roughly a decade’s worth of movies in their interlocking cinematic universe, there have been clear signs of fatigue from some of its contractually-bound stars, with actors Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans and Idris Elba all letting slip that the rigorous schedules and uniform storylines have started to grate on their creative impulses… the elephant in the room being that this malaise may easily transfer to audiences soon enough. One reason why 2014’s runaway success Guardians of the Galaxy was considered a welcome rough diamond in the Marvel stable was because it injected a dose of irreverent humour absent from the otherwise polished but uniform blockbusters.

Unfortunately for Marvel, it has to wait another year for a ‘Guardians’ sequel to – hopefully – inject some spice into the proceedings. With auteur director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim and the End of the World) dropping out of that other Marvel project of the year, Ant Man, the money-raking enterprise may be looking at an otherwise bland year of rote blockbusters.

This will, of course, only affect audiences – who run the risk of sleeping through films they’ve already eagerly forked out cash for while Marvel laughs its way to the bank.

There are scant details on the plot of JJ Abrams’s much-hyped Star Wars revamp, though there’s some goodwill for the project owing to the fact that the franchise’s creator, George Lucas, is now out of the picture – he made a dog’s breakfast out of the prequel trilogy – and that the reliable Abrams has stepped in to give a spit-polish to the generation-hopping space opera.

True to super-secretive Abrams form, the trailer leaves us none the wiser on how exactly the Force will be awakening come Christmastime 2015, but it certainly hits the Star Wars geek g-spots with gusto: I challenge any fan to resist gasping when the Millennium Falcon whooshes into view in the final few frames of the preview we’ve been given.

Also stoking the flames of nostalgia will be Jurassic World, featuring Guardians of the Galaxy alumnus Chris Pratt as a staff member of the titular high-concept theme park off of Central America’s Pacific coast. The park decides to engineer a super-dinosaur to boost attendance and… well, you can guess where it goes from there. Resurrecting the corpse of a long-dormant sequel to Jurassic Park III – apparently just for the sake of it – doesn’t lend this project much credence, so we’ll have to see if there’s all that much bite to this beast come June.

It also remains to be seen whether Mad Max: Fury Road will be nothing more than a retreat of yet older ground, gorgeously atmospheric trailers and top-notch cast (led by Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron) notwithstanding. Unlike Lucas, this George (Miller) will be returning to the post-apocalyptic franchise he kick-started back in the 80s. It’ll be interesting to see whether the veteran director finds Hardy an apt replacement for Mel Gibson.

It’s certainly a more interesting prospect than Terminator: Genysis, which despite the presence of fan-favourite Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame – not to mention Arnie himself – looks to be yet another limp attempt at revitalising a franchise that has well and truly run its course.

Thanks to the critical and commercial success of Skyfall, however, the James Bond brand is very healthy these days, and the announcement that its upcoming instalment, Spectre, will feature the likes of Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained), Monica Bellucci and French It-Girl of the moment Léa Seydoux only bolsters confidence in this new instalment.

Though Daniel Craig has expressed bemusement over his commitment to the character he’s chained to play, the fact that the new film will be drawing on classic Bond adversaries – SPECTRE – is a further indication that the series will be taking a turn for rollicking, light-hearted fun when compared to their ‘grimdark’ counterparts.

But the people who brought you Kick-Ass (though, notably, not Kick-Ass 2) will be gladly appropriating the James Bond vibe for their own purposes, as the Matthew Vaughn-directed Kingsman: The Secret Service, adapted from the comic book by Mark Millar, looks to be a fun espionage romp with a far more anarchic edge than the comparatively stodgy Bond stable would allow. And if Kick-Ass is anything to go by, it’ll probably feature far more gratuitious violence and colourful language, and appeal to a younger (but not too younger) demographic than the one traditionally netted by the Bond films.

Not that the kids will be left behind this year. There’s live-action adaptations of both Cinderella and The Jungle Book – which look like unnecessary retreads of animated classics, not that the kids are likely to notice. There’s also the fairy tale prequel Pan, with Hugh Jackman as Captain Hook, and Minions, the inevitable spin-off about the adorably incoherent yellow worker-critters of the Despicable Me franchise.

Young adults, on the other hand, can look forward to the conclusion of the Hunger Games franchise, with Mockingjay – Part 2 hitting the screens in November. Here’s hoping that the final instalment doesn’t botch the superlative atmosphere and narrative tempo that made its immediate predecessor such a notable example of its genre. No such hope for latter-day entries like The Maze Runner 2 and Divergent: Insurgent, which are likely to ride the wave rather than supply fresh takes on a trendy-as-hell sub-genre.

Book adaptations will remain a viable cash cow this year though, with Fifty Shades of Grey inevitably reeling in the many fans of the EL James erotic bestseller to the multiplexes. But it remains to be seen whether this knee-jerk adaptation will really have legs beyond its opening weekend, given that Fifty Shades buzz has more or less died down and that its cast is nothing to write home about.

Entertainment for adults that is not necessarily ‘adults-only’ entertainment will thankfully make something of a presence in the sphere of mainstream cinema. Mawkish OAP drama will once again have its day in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, reuniting Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith and Dev Patel in their ongoing Indian soft-focus romance. J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year has reeled in some of the hottest character actors of the moment – Oscar Isaacs and Jessica Chastain – to tell the story of an immigrant couple trying to make good in New York during the most statistically bloody year in the city’s history.

Chandor is a promising director, with last year’s dialogue-free All is Lost being a challenging entry in the mainstream sphere. Just as having Robert Redford’s performance in that film probably helped to get it made, A Most Violent Year will likely benefit from Isaacs and Chastain’s star power, given that the pair have proven they can straddle mainstream hits and award-baiting dramas seamlessly (they’ve put their names to films by Christopher Nolan, the Coen Brothers, Zack Snyder and Terrence Malick amongst others). Chandor’s film is an exciting prospect because if it works, it means we would get the version of American Hustle that we deserve.

Chastain will also be making an appearance in Crimson Peak, Guillermo del Toro’s gothic chiller which will also boast the likes of Tom Hiddleston and Mia Wasikowska among its ranks. Though he’s played in some big sandboxes in the past – and got a chance to direct The Hobbit before the rescheduling started getting on his Mexican man-tits – he’s not one to play by the book, and has an earnest respect for genre traditions that could go either way.

We’ve yet to get the Michael Keaton-starring awards magnet Birdman to our shores, in which the former Batman goes ‘meta’ in a story about an actor, famous for playing the titular superhero, makes a desperate bid for artistic credibility by attempting to stage a production of Raymond Carver’s short story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

Less risqué but just as thematically dense will be Inherent Vice. Ostensibly about a retired private detective (Joaquin Phoenix, leading a star-studded cast) plunged into the whirlwind of a corporate conspiracy in 1960s America, the film is a dream team project. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, The Master) from the novel of the same name by Thomas Pynchon (V, Gravity’s Rainbow), chances are that this won’t just be a period-accurate film noir pastiche. Seasoned chroniclers of the ‘American condition’ both, Pynchon and Anderson are likely to deliver a scathing dissection of a key era in the continent’s history.

A complex treatment of America should be of interest to us all. After all, most of the films detailed above originate from there… which is a telling, and enduring, phenomenon.