Hair apparent ... Tom Hanks's drowned cat 'do gets another outing in the Da Vinci Code followup, Angels and Demons
Diminishing returns are to the Hollywood summer blockbuster what suspense is to Hitchcock, high heels and hospital scenes are to Almodóvar or scandalous overpricing is to popcorn. With a handful of exceptions, the high point of a tent-pole picture's existence is the first teaser trailer, or even the first teaser poster – the moment when avid fandom can project onto that nearly-blank canvas the wondrous, expectation-surpassing movie that will never be. Then comes the overcooked buildup, the disappointing release and the even more disappointing sequels. Cue Sideshow Bob-style shudder.
This year, diminishing returns seem to apply not just to individual titles but to the industry's entire slate. Of the 15 titles selected by Variety as the summer blockbusters to watch, at least two-thirds are retreads of established franchises, whether as sequels, spin-offs or remakes.
In the sequels and spin-off category there's Hugh Jackman reverting from top-hat-and-tails to whiskers and claws in X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Christian Bale doing franchise duty again in Terminator Salvation; further entries in the Harry Potter, Ice Age, Transformers and Night at the Museum series; and, perhaps worst to contemplate, another turn round the block for Tom Hanks's drowned-cat 'do in Angels & Demons, sired by The Da Vinci Code. In terms of adaptations, there's JJ Abrams's space-babies take on Star Trek; Will Ferrell in a remake of the famously shoddy fantasy TV series Land of the Lost; and a live-action version of GI Joe, partly inspired by the moolah the first Transformers film raked in.
That the studios lean heavily on brands and formulae that have proven profitable is hardly news but it's still dispiriting to see quite so derivative a slate of titles lined up for the summer. So far, the signs are that the economic downturn need not spell disaster for the film industry: box office is actually up. Just like in the Great Depression, right? Yes and no. For all the stories about the Depression being the making of the movies, the early 1930s were highly troubled times for box-office takings. It was only later on, when audiences' means and desires meshed more neatly with Hollywood output, that the golden age kicked in. Perhaps this summer's titles will prove to be the equivalent of well-made comfort food, offering familiar pleasures that audiences appreciate. Over the longer term, however, the industry is likely to have to come up with something new that chimes with the times.
This could be where the few non-franchise titles on Variety's list come in. A couple of them could also fit into the comfort-food category, but in an imaginative, revisionist kind of way. Michael Mann's Public Enemies and Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds are knowing takes on established genres with adult male appeal and period resonance: the gangster picture that took off in the Depression and the war movie that arguably succeeded it. And the Disney-Pixar feature Up – about a man whose house achieves lift-off with balloons – should benefit from the Pixar studio brand; indeed, it is perhaps the only studio brand with audience appeal comparable to that of, say, Universal horror or Warner Bros gangster flicks of the 1930s.
The final two films on Variety's list are comedies: Judd Apatow's latest, Funny People, starring Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen as present-day standups, and The Year One, Harold Ramis's Monty Python-style stone-age/Biblical spoof starring Jack Black and Michael Cera. A couple of years ago, it's questionable whether such comedies would have found a place in a blockbuster list. But although they have traditionally been overlooked as both box-office and critical darlings, comedies are cheap to produce and blessedly escapist. At their most successful, there are few other genres that please studios and audiences more. A period of economic strife just might be what's needed for them finally to take their well-deserved place in the sun.
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