We’re barely into the new year, and things are looking very promising indeed for genre movies.
We’ve got Oblivion, After Earth, Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, Pacific Rim, Kick Ass 2, Elysium, Ender’s Game, Thor the Dark World, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, along with the long awaited second installment of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire. And according to several estimates, the next Hunger Games could be the biggest movie of the year.
When the first installment of the Hunger Games hit theaters this year, it had major competition with The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, but was still a big phenomenon at the box office with over $400 million domestic, and $686 million world-wide.
The site Fandango, where you can buy movie tickets in advance, just conducted a survey of this year’s upcoming films, and the next Hunger Games installment indeed came in at #1 for Most Anticipated Blockbuster. The next Hobbit installment came in at #2, followed by Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, and The Great Gatsby.
Fandango also had polls for Biggest Male Breakout Movie Star, and the fans voted for the next Superman, Henry Cavill. Biggest Female Breakout Movie Star was Alice Eve, who’s going to be in Star Trek Into Darkness. Most Anticipated Villain is Ben Kingsley in Iron Man 3, with Benedict Cumberbatch from Star Trek Into Darkness coming in second, and Michael Shannon from Man of Steel coming in third.
Fandango also had a poll for the Most Anticipated Apocalyptic Movie, and World War Z came in at #1, followed by After Earth, Pacific Rim, the comedy This is the End, and Oblivion.
Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Richard Greenfield from the research company BTIG has predicted that Catching Fire will indeed be the biggest film of the year, but also predicted trouble for The Lone Ranger.
Greenfield reportedly feels The Lone Ranger will be the year’s biggest disappointment, and the film has certainly had its share of troubles, but I’ll wait for the reviews and box office tracking later in the year. I can still recall when Titanic and X-Men both had the worst buzz imaginable, and they both turned out just fine.
