Recycled movies

Hol­ly­wood is an in­dus­try that feeds on re­cy­cled ma­te­r­ial. It is a strat­egy that works: risk lit­tle with for­mu­las that have al­ready proven their ef­fec­tive­ness, re­peated year after year. The 10% fall in global rev­enue dur­ing the first half of 2019 has re­sulted in crit­i­cal voices in the in­dus­try. Once again, how­ever, we find our­selves talk­ing about new cin­ema pro­duc­tions mostly com­pris­ing se­quels, re­makes, re­boots and su­per­hero movies, the true stars of the 21st cen­tury.

Star Wars: the rise of Sky­walker tops the list of most ea­gerly awaited se­quels, and not only by its many fans. Episode IX of the galac­tic saga, which brings the third tril­ogy to a close, stars the same ac­tors as the two pre­vi­ous films: Daisy Ri­d­ley, Adam Dri­ver, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac. J. J. Abrams di­rects this su­per­pro­duc­tion, which sees Rey, Finn, Poe and com­pany once again face the First Order, led by Snoke, who in­tends to con­quer the galaxy and elim­i­nate the last jedi.

Al­though the Joker strictly be­longs to the su­per­heroes uni­verse (he first ap­peared in DC Comics as Bat­man’s rival), Joaquin Phoenix, to­gether with di­rec­tor Todd Phillips (Hang­over in Las Vegas), has cre­ated an atyp­i­cal char­ac­ter, a tor­tured clown, es­pe­cially through the work of the actor, rather than with the usual spe­cial ef­fects. Highly praised at the Venice Film Fes­ti­val, where it has just been shown, the en­thu­si­asm of some crit­ics means it is un­doubt­edly one of the most an­tic­i­pated movies of the au­tumn. It ar­rives in cin­e­mas here on Oc­to­ber 4.

Walt Dis­ney (also owner of the Star Wars saga) re­leases two more movies in the se­quels sec­tion. Malef­i­cent: Mis­tress of Evil sees An­gelina Jolie back in the role of the fairy with the hard­ened heart. The other is the se­quel to Frozen, which was the high­est gross­ing block­buster movie in his­tory five years ago. And it still is today. It re­mains to be seen whether Frozen II, which will hit our screens on No­vem­ber 22, can reach sim­i­lar heights. The new film re­veals part of the main char­ac­ters Elsa and Anna’s pasts, and in­tro­duces view­ers to their mother, who was not in the orig­i­nal.

The list of new fea­ture films com­ing out of Hol­ly­wood in­cludes three re­makes. Char­lie’s An­gels will be re­leased on No­vem­ber 29. The fa­mous agents made the leap from the sev­en­ties TV se­ries to the big screen in 2000 with Cameron Diaz, Drew Bar­ry­more and Lucy Liu. Times have changed how­ever, and now it is a woman, Eliz­a­beth Banks, who leads the new fe­male hero­ines - Kris­ten Stew­art, Naomi Scott and Ella Balin­ska.

On the back of the Schwarzeneg­ger tril­ogy, in­clud­ing Ter­mi­na­tor Sal­va­tion and Ter­mi­na­tor: Gen­e­sis, the saga now re­turns to cin­e­mas on Oc­to­ber 31 with Ter­mi­na­tor: Dark Fate. It is di­rected by Tim Miller (Dead­pool), while Schwarzeneg­ger and Linda Hamil­ton again star.

Mean­while, Roland Em­merich (In­de­pen­dence day, 2012) di­rects Mid­way, a movie re­lat­ing a de­ci­sive bat­tle in the Pa­cific War, which opens on Oc­to­ber 31.

CIN­EMA