By Ben Fee 10/01/2012
No doubt about it, 2011 was a banner year for geeks. In the world of games we had the release of Batman: Arkham City and the almighty Skyrim. At the cinema we were witness to Harry Potter’s final hurrah and the first wave of Marvel Film’s attempt to dominate Hollywood. And what a wave it was – Thor, Captain America, X-Men: First Class and not a stinker among them. Then, to top it all, we saw the birth of our very own Geek Pride site, striding across the internet like a sweaty sarcastic colossus.
But what does 2012 hold in store for the pale, light-shunning hordes of geekdom? Ladies and gentlemen, hold on to your pokeballs…
All your cinemas belong to us
It’s been on the cards for a while now but 2012 is the year that us geeks officially rule the movie-going roost. In May, Joss Whedon (who, I must admit, can do no wrong in my eyes) brings us his make-or-break gamble, The Avengers. This is by far the most important film for geekdom in many years. Plot and suchlike aside, this is Marvel’s coup de grace, their attempt to present a coherent cohesive universe in which all of their properties interact and affect the lives of the others. In the same way Captain America made Iron Man 2 less rubbish, The Avengers will, if successful, turn all the recent Marvel films into one incredible action-adventure experience. There’s a lot to worry about though. This is Whedon’s first major blockbuster as writer/director and he’s chosen a film in which every character needs their own plot, characterisation, development, all in a two and a half hour package. “Too many characters” has been the death knell for many a genre film but, if anyone can handle it, it’s going to be the guy who gave us Buffy, Angel and Firefly.
If he pulls it off, get ready for a landslide of geekgasmic proportions. DC are just waiting to see if The Avengers sinks or swims before having another stab at bring their own supergroup The Justice League to the big screen and, my personal favourite reason for it succeeding, hopefully we’ll see a lot more of this Joss Whedon fellow if he manages to pull off the biggest superhero event since Peter Parker tried to pet a radioactive spider.
Away from the gravity well created by The Avengers’ very presence in next year’s release schedule, Marvel Films are also going to have a go at revitalising everyone’s favourite wall-crawler in the Andrew Garfield-starring Amazing Spiderman. After the franchise-slaughtering Spiderman 3, we needed more web-slinging action like we needed more explosions in a Michael Bay movie, but Marvel Studios are betting that a more serious tone and a less annoying Peter Parker are going to win where Tobey Maguire mincing down the street to Staying Alive failed so very miserably.
DC’s Dark Knight Rising will also be clamoring for our box office attention, promising a climactic end to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, made even more intriguing by the presence of the villain Bane, played by Tom Hardy, a character who, in the comics, was responsible for “breaking” Batman and who better than him to be the one to put the Dark Knight in the ground.
If superheroes aren’t your thing (you freak), Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus are going to occupy the extremes of the geek spectrum; one a heart-warming fantasy, the other a bleak sci-fi horror, but both welcome returns to the properties that made these creators household names to all self-respecting geeks. Add to those the more obscure but equally exciting Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and World War Z and that yearly cinema pass is starting to look pretty darn tempting.
More on 2012 Films can be found in this guardian Article http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/gallery/2011/dec/30/50-biggest-films-2012-pictures#/?picture=383507097&index=3
