It is inevitable that everyone will compare Steven Soderbergh's upcoming action-thriller "Contagion" with Wolfgang Petersen's identically-themed "Outbreak" released 15 years earlier. Just watched the Contagion trailer. Looks pretty generic and leaves you with a feeling of "I have seen this all before". But of course, what will make it worth watching, besides Soderbergh's direction, will be the star cast - Matt Damon, Kate Winslett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard...super cool. Will be worth the wait till September.

I have been waiting and waiting for the trailer for John Carter (inexplicably shortened from the original title John Carter of Mars). Based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic set of stories about a man from one culture who becomes a hero in a completely  world (ha ha, yes, it's that similar to Tarzan), John Carter is being directed by Andrew Stanton, the Pixar man who directed A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo and Wall-E. Yes, it's that big a deal for Disney.

If ever a movie has tried to downplay its most important element, it's this one. First, they shorten the name to John Carter, so that the average kid (who is the key target audience demographic) who hasn't even heard of Edgar Rice Burroughs is going to think this is some biopic of a past US President. Ok, once the kid sees the trailer, he realizes it's not about a US President, but it looks vaguely generic. It could almost be a spin-off of Conan the Barbarian. Absolutely no mention of Mars. Right until the very end, no visuals or even hints of the Barsoomians. And the one shot of a Martian looks terribly CGI-ish. 

I sure hope they throw some money at this and give it the marketing hype it desperately needs. No one is going to come running to watch Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins...their faces might be familiar from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but not their names. So, it has to be marketed as a high concept movie story, set on an alien world, from the author of Tarzan.

They better get it right. I want to like it so much.

I am getting really excited about the cast being put together for Ridley Scott's "Prometheus", which will be set in the same universe as his breakout hit "Alien" from 1979.
The cast list already had Michael Fassbender (emerging now as a major force in lead roles), Noomi Rapace (who acted as Lisbeth Salander in the original foreign films based on the Millenium trilogy novels), Idris Elba (who was impressive as the gatekeeper of Asgard in "Thor") and Charlize Theron (who we haven't seen on screen since her 2008 superhero pic "Hancock" with Will Smith). 
Now, the studio have announced that Ben Foster is joining the cast. Ben Foster is one of my favourite young actors...I would call him a character actor rather than a leading man, based on his performances in X-Men 3 (as Angel), 3:10 to Yuma and The Messenger.
Damon Lindelof, who created the basic story premise for the TV series "Lost", is writing the screenplay. 
Cinematography will be by Dariusz Wolski, who has shot all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and Alice in Wonderland. Now that may not sound like the right kind of credentials for a dark space opera. But if you delve into Wolski's past, you can see that was the cinematographer for 2 of Alex Proyas' early movies, "The Crow" and "Dark City", both of which had a tonal palette influenced by Ridley Scott's "Alien" and "Blade Runner". Wolski also shot "Crimson Tide" (the submarine pic directed by Ridley's brother Tony), which would make him perfect for filming claustrophobic scenes inside a spaceship.
Looks like a really potent combination of cast and crew.
So, I am hoping for an instant classic when the film is released in June 2012.