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May 2403
Summer Preview

SUMMER PREVIEW

By Wilson Morales

Just like last summer, when the season was totally dominated by the amount of sequels that came out, this summer is no different. There won't be sequels coming out every week, but there's enough to stop any new film looking build a fan base. The sequels to Shrek, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Pitch Black, The Bourne Identity, and The Princess Diaries should bring in fans back to the theatre. If sequels are not in this year, then it's remakes. There's a growing trend these days to remake foreign and classic films. Foreign films can be redone to lure a new audience to the story, but when you remake a classic film like "The Manchurian Candidate", you better have the right cast and the right director. Well, the teaming of Jonathan Demme and Denzel Washington should hopefully put those who loved the original at ease. What would the summer be without the use of CGI, and we'll have plenty of those with "Van Helsing", "The Day After Tomorrow", and "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", just to name a few. Repeat viewings usually come from the kids, and every studio hopes that their family film will do that. Family films include Harry Potter, Garfield, Shrek 2, and Thunderbirds. Legendary figures will be displayed on the screen as the story of Achilles is told in "Troy" as well as a new version of "King Arthur". Marvel Comics should be increase in sales as "Spider-Man 2" comes out as well as "Catwoman", starring Oscar winner Halle Berry. And finally, if "Freddy Vs. Jason" can bring in fans of each film, then why not "Alien Vs. Predator". It will certainly be a battle at the box office for supremacy.


GARFIELD
20TH Century Fox Opens June 11

GARFIELD marks the long-awaited motion picture debut of America's favorite feline and the world's laziest cat. The live action / CGI picture is adapted from the syndicated cartoon strip read in 2600 newspapers by 260 million readers around the globe. Bill Murray provides the voice of the fat, happy star.

Cast: Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield.

 

 


 

THE STEPFORD WIVES
Paramount Pictures Opens June 11

What does it take to become a Stepford wife, a woman perfect beyond belief? Ask the Stepford husbands, who've created this high-tech terrifying little town, in a very modern comedy-thriller. Joanna (Kidman) and her husband move to the beautiful upper-class suburb of Stepford, where she soon starts to suspect something is strange and artificial about her new female neiborhors.

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Roger Bart, Glenn Close, Faith Hill, Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Mike White, Lisa Masters, Jon Lovitz

 

 


 

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
Touchstone Pictures Opens June 18

Fabulous adventures, hilarious predicaments, and exhilarating action await an all-star international cast as three unlikely heroes attempt to settle an outrageous wager in the new spectacle from Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media for the whole family, "Around the World in 80 Days." An eccentric London inventor, Phileas Fogg (STEVE COOGAN), has come up with the secrets to flight, electricity, and even rollerblades, but the world has dismissed him as a crackpot. Desperate to be taken seriously, Fogg makes an outlandish bet with Lord Kelvin (JIM BROADBENT), the head of the Royal Academy of Science: to circumnavigate the globe in no more than 80 days! With his two sidekicks Passepartout (JACKIE CHAN) and femme fatale Monique (CECILE DE FRANCE) Fogg is headed on a frantic, heart-pounding round-the-world race that takes our heroes to the world's most exotic places by land, sea, and air. Along the way, our heroes face many adventures and obstacles from an all-star cast including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kathy Bates, Owen and Luke Wilson, and Rob Schneider.

Cast: Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan, Cecile De France, Jim Broadbent

 


 

DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY
20TH Century Fox Opens June 18

A group of misfits enter a Las Vegas dodgeball tournament in order to save their cherished local gym from the onslaught of a corporate health fitness chain.

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor and Rip Torn

 

 

 

 


 

THE TERMINAL
Dreamworks SKG Opens June 18

"The Terminal" tells the story of Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a visitor to New York from Eastern Europe, whose homeland erupts in a fiery coup while he is in the air en route to America. Stranded at Kennedy Airport with a passport from nowhere, he is unauthorized to actually enter the United States and must improvise his days and nights in the terminal's international transit lounge until the war at home is over. As the weeks and months stretch on, Viktor finds the compressed universe of the terminal to be a richly complex world of absurdity, generosity, ambition, amusement, status, serendipity and even romance with a beautiful flight attendant named Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones). But Viktor has long worn out his welcome with airport official Frank Dixon, who considers him a bureaucratic glitch, a problem he cannot control but wants desperately to erase.

Cast: Tom Hanks, Stanley Tucci, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Diego Luna, Chi McBride, Zoe Saldana

 


 

DE-LOVELY
MGM/ UA Opens June 25

De-Lovely is an original musical portrait of American composer Coler Porter, filled with his unforgettable songs. In the film, Porter is looking back on his life as if it was one of his spectacular stage shows, with the people and events of his life becoming the actors and action onstage. Through elaborate production numbers and popular hits like "Anything Goes," "It's De-Lovely," and "Night and Day," Porter's elegant, excessive past comes to light - including his deeply complicated relationship with his wife and muse, Linda Lee Porter.

Cast: Kevin Kline, Jonathan Pryce, Elvis Costello, Ashely Judd, Lara Fabian, Vivian Green, Diana Krall, Robbie Williams, Natalie Cole, Sheryl Crow, Mario Frangoulis, Mick Hucknall and Alanis Morissette.

 


 

THE NOTEBOOK
New Line Cinema Opens June 25

Based on the bestselling novel by Nicholas Sparks, this drama tells of a nursing home resident whose notebook contains the details of a 1940s North Carolina love triangle (depicted in flashblacks) in which two men vied for her affections.

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Gardner, & Gena Rowlands

 

 

 


 

TWO BROTHERS
Universal Pictures Opens June 25

From Jean-Jacques Annaud, the acclaimed director of The Bear, comes an extraordinary motion picture event for the whole family. Set not so long ago in a distant land, Two Brothers is the story of twin tiger cubs--one shy and gentle, the other, bold and fierce--who are born among the temple ruins of an exotic jungle, but are one day separated by fate. The bold brother is sold off to a circus, where homesickness and living in a cage rob him of his spirit. The shy cub becomes the beloved companion for the governor's lonely young son, until an accident forces the family to give him away to a man who resolves to break his gentle nature and turn him into a fighter for sport. When they are fully grown, the brothers find themselves reunited--but as forced enemies pitted against each other. An epic adventure story about the power of friendship, the bond between brothers and the spirit that connects us all, Two Brothers stars Guy Pearce (Memento, L.A. Confidential) as the adventurer whose tragic intervention into the idyllic lives of the twin cubs forever intertwines their fates.

Cast: Guy Pearce, Jean-Claude Dreyfus and Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu

 


 

WHITE CHICKS
Sony Pictures Opens June 25

Brothers Shawn and Marlon Wayans star as cops who go undercover in the Hamptons as a pair of white socialites.

Cast: Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Anne Dudek, & Busy Phillips

 

 

 

 


 

SPIDER MAN 2
Sony Pictures Opens June 30

Spider-Man 2 explores the Peter's character as he faces new challenges and struggles with "the gift and the curse," desperately trying to balance his dual identities as the web-slinging superhero Spider-Man and his life as a college student. Tormented by his secrets, Peter finds that his relationships with all those he holds dear are in danger of unraveling. His life-long yearning for M.J. (Kirsten Dunst) becomes even stronger as he fights the impulse to reveal his secret life and declare his love. His friendship with Harry Osborn (James Franco) is complicated by the young Osborn's bitterness over his father's death and his growing vendetta against Spider-Man. Even Peter's beloved Aunt May (Rosemary Harris), who has fallen on hard times after the death of Uncle Ben, begins to have doubts about her nephew. Peter's life is about to become even more complicated as he encounters a formidable new foe -- Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina). Peter must use all the powers at his disposal to try to stop this diabolical madman in his octagonal tracks.

Cast: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons, Alfred Molina, Brooke Adams, Dylan Baker, Elizabeth Banks, and Bruce Campbell.

 


 

THE CLEARING
Fox Searchlight Opens July 2

A wealthy couple (Redford, Mirren) has their perfect existence shattered when the husband is kidnapped and held for ransom by a disgruntled employee.

Cast: Robert Redford, Helen Mirren, Willem Dafoe, & Alessandro Nivola

 

 

 

 


 

ANCHORMAN
Dreamworks SKG Opens July 9

Will Ferrell ("Elf," "Old School") stars as Ron Burgundy, the top-rated anchorman in San Diego in the '70s. When feminism marches into the newsroom in the form of ambitious newswoman Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) Ron is willing to play along at firstas long as Veronica stays in her place, covering cat fashion shows, cooking, and other "female" interests. But when Veronica refuses to settle for being eye candy and steps behind the news desk, it's more than a battle between two perfectly coiffed anchor-persons it's war.

Cast: Christina Applegate, Vince Vaughn , Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Carell

 


 

KING ARTHUR
Touchstone Pictures Opens July 9

Historians have thought for centuries that King Arthur was only a myth, but the legend was based on a real hero, torn between his private ambitions and his public sense of duty. A reluctant leader, Arthur (CLIVE OWEN) wishes only to leave Britain and return to the peace and stability of Rome. Before he can, one final mission leads him and his Knights of the Round Table Lancelot, Galahad, Bors, Tristan, and Gawain to the conclusion that when Rome is gone, Britain will need a leader to fill the vacuum. Britain needs a king someone not only to defend against the current threat of invading Saxons, but to lead the isle into a new age. Under the guidance of Merlin, a former enemy, and the beautiful, courageous Guinevere (KEIRA KNIGHTLEY) by his side, Arthur will have to find the strength within himself to change the course of history. Thrilling adventure, edge-of-your-seat action and historical grandeur come together in this unique look at the origins of one of the greatest legends ever told.

Cast: Clive Owen, Keira Knightley, Stellan Skarsgård, Stephen Dillane, Ray Winstone, Hugh Dancy, Til Schweiger, Ioan Gruffudd

 


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