Paramount film slate 2008

Updated on January 9, 2008 By Ken Begg 15 Comments

This is the last of the slates I’ve been covering. I have basically listed these from (by my lights) worst to best. Ironically, I initially mis-identified Universal’s sorry slate as being Paramount’s, whereas the latter’s actually line-up is dynamite.  For what it’s worth, Paramount would top my list for the fact that they have The One Movie I Most Want to See This Year, but in fact it’s a very strong slate all around.  

January 18
Cloverfield
Needless to say, a giant monster movie is right up my alley.  Normally I’d see this immediately, but (of course) it’s being released on B-Fest weekend.  I’m there, though.  Paramount thus also has a rare film I really want to see that comes out before the big summer rush.

February 1
Strange Wilderness
Slob comedy (R rated, of course) about a failing wildlife TV host who decides to try to save his show by finding Bigfoot. What, we couldn’t have had a Brian Fellows movie instead?

February 15
The Spiderwick Chronicles
The latest almost certain-to-fail kiddie fantasy film adapted from a book series.  Co-starring Nick Nolte?  Wasn’t Robert DeNiro in one of these too?  Who the hell is casting these movies?  I may be wrong, though:  If they actually aim this at little kids, maybe it’ll do OK.

March 21
Drillbit Taylor
Owen Wilson is an inept bodyguard hired by some bullied teens; wackiness ensues.

March 28
Stop-Loss
Yet another anti-Iraq war flick (boy, and haven’t those been doing well).  Soldier returns home from duty in Iraq and the Army tries to send him back overseas…take it from there.  I think that instead I’ll go see that big budget film detailing the heroic and amazing efforts of our troops during the Battle of Fallujah, or that film about Cpl. Jason Dunhill, who died shielding some of his fellow Marines from a grenade and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.  You know, those movies.

April 4
Shine a Light
Martin Scorsese makes a Rolling Stones concert documentary.  And Bill Clinton’s in it!  I’ve already bought my ticket! 

April 11
The Ruins
Horror flick adapted from a popular novel about evil stuff happening in the Mexican jungle.

May 2
Iron Man
Here is it.  If I could see but one film this year, this would be it.  Guys, you had me at Robert Downey, Jr.

May 22
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
I’m not the world’s biggest Indiana Jones fan, but still, this is definitely in my top ten list.  On the good side:  Smart to give Indy a kid to take some of the pressure off Harrison Ford, and the idea of making it ’50s style sci-fi film rather than a ’30s style action serial is neat-o keen. I also like the fact that Communists are actually going to be the villains.  My doubts reside in wondering if the film will really make the Communists as default bad as the Nazis were in the earlier films, or will they water it down with some dumb “rogue communist” thing.  Also, bigger concern?  Can Steven Spielberg bring himself to direct a film anymore with fun violence?  Because if he can’t, he shouldn’t be making this.

June 6
Kung Fu Panda
Pretty self-explanatory animated flick.

June 20
The Love Guru
Michael Myers finally returns to the big screen, from which (other than voicing Shrek) he’s been gone from for a while.  I love a lot of Myers’ work, so I have high hopes.  Note to Mr. Myers, though:  Please lay off the grosser humor (ala Fat Bastard) a tad.  That’s not really what your comedy is about.

July 11
Tropic Thunder
Five actors get caught in a real war situation, and must rely on the ‘skills’ they picked up in one of the pre-movie ‘bootcamps.’  Stars and co-written by Ben Stiller, with nice supporting cast: Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Robert Downey Jr.  The premise is definitely strong, let’s see what they make of it.

August 8
Eagle Eye
Political suspense thriller with Shia LaBeouf.

August 22
Case 39
Horror thriller about a social worker (Renee Zellweger) who works to save a 10 year-old girl, only to find the girl may not be the victim she thought.  It’s currently rated ‘R’, we’ll see if they revamp it as PG-13 before release.

September 26
Nowhereland
Comic fantasy about a failing executive falls into his daughter’s fantasy world.  Stars Eddie Murphy. 

Fall
Ghost Town
Sounds like a comic riff on The Sixth Sense and The Ghost Whisperer, about a dentist who starts seeing dead people who want help contacting the living.  Another strong concept, we’ll see about the execution.  Stars Ricky Gervais.

November 7
Madagascar: The Crate Escape
Sequel to the popular animated movie.

November 26
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Brad Pitt stars in a fantasy about a man who is born at 80 years old, and ages backward.  Adapted from an F. Scott Fitzgerald story.  Paramount obviously has been looking for interesting plot concepts lately; let’s hope they make good movies out of them.

December 19
Revolutionary Road
Drama about a young couple in the 1950s (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet…that’s right) struggling to raise kids in (I’m just guessing here) soulless American suburbia.  Well, they should have an easier go of it this time, you’d think.

December 25
Star Trek
The reboot of the classic Star Trek.  We’ll see.  Still, hiring Simon Pegg was a good move.

TBA
A Tale of Two Sisters
Finally, an American remake of an Asian horror movie!

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  • fish eye no miko

    Cloverfield
    Ya know, I know this movie is all “man on the street” cinema verite and all that, but dear God, they better show the monster at least once.

    Iron Man
    I’m not a big fan, but it if gets good reviews, I might go.

    Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
    They’re doing a sci-fi thing? Well I guess that’s no weirder than the mystical and Biblical stuff in the other films when you get right down to it.

    The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
    “Brad Pitt stars in a fantasy about a man who is born at 80 years old,”
    Ok… Wow, his poor mother. O_O

    Star Trek
    That’s gonna be this year? Interesting. I’m not sure. There are certain things about TOS that I don’t care for, but… we’ll see. Plus, those things might not be as evident in this version.

    A Tale of Two Sisters
    “Finally, an American remake of an Asian horror movie!”
    [snerk]
    Indeed.

  • Pilgrim

    “Ironically, I initially mis-identified Universal’s sorry slate as being Paramount’s, whereas the latter’s actually line-up is dynamite.”

    Even more ironically, Universal’s slate isn’t terrible, either. Obviously 20th Century Fox’s lineup is SO bad you’ve blocked the studio’s name from your memory!

  • Never ignore the obvious: I’m just a moron.

  • Pilgrim

    Hey man, don’t sweat it. Your site was one of the ones that got me into B-movies (back when it was KWAM), I think I can cut you some slack.

  • Commies were awesome villains in the early James Bond movies. Spielberg hasn’t been shy about touting Indy as a pulp-era James Bond (even going so far as casting Sean Connery as Indy’s dad), so I’m hopeful that he’ll successfully mimick the world of commie baddies like Red Grant and Rosa Klebb.

  • Jack Spencer

    I saw the “Iconoclasts” episode on the Sundance Channel involving Michael Myers and Deepak Chopra. It was rather interesting, particularly the bit about George Harrison. The Love Guru was mentioned in passing. It sounds like it could either be good or another pet project blunder. We’ll see.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    You were right about the strength of the slate there.
    Cloverfield…I haven’t wanted to see a movie in the theaters that much since…damn, I’m not even sure. Kung Fu Hustle maybe. Although I really hope I’m not psyching myself up for disappointment…
    The Ruins might pique my interest depending on the trailers (maybe I should hunt down the book); and the Iron Man and Indy films, I’d probably give those a go.
    Maybe that one about the guy born old–that’s an interesting concept, I’ll give them that. Wonder how it’d work at the end…I guess he’d turn into a fetus and die as his organs became nonfunctioning due to their being unfinished?

  • Rob Uthe

    I am looking forward to the Indian Jones film. However, I have two concerns:

    1) I am not 10 anymore, as I was when I saw Raiders. I might be a little less easy to please.

    2) I fear you may be right about the “rogue communists”. I have no evidence for this, and I hope it isn’t true, but I can easily see Spielberg creating a fantasy wereby, in the midst of the darkest days of the Cold War, the Soviets and Americans work together to defeat an evil renegade band of communist scientists who would use the power of Crystal Skulls to bring about the destruction of the world. At the end, both the Soviets and Indy’s group would reflect on the “madness” of Mutally Assured Destruction, and hope that somehow, in the future, we will see the error of our ways. It can also be an allegorical anti-Iraq war tale, I suppose.

    There better be melting people in it, anyway!

  • fish eye no miko

    The Rev. D.D. said: “The Ruins might pique my interest depending on the trailers (maybe I should hunt down the book)”

    I saw a trailer for it before Sweeney Todd, so they’ve started showing them. You can probably find it at your trailer-watching Web Site of choice.

  • PaulT

    @Rob: you don’t have to be 10 to enjoy Raiders.. Have you rewatched it recently? It remains a very strong and highly enjoyable movie to this day, with quite a lot of things that would frankly be considered too adult by today’s filmmakers (the main concern about Indy 4 – do Spielberg and Lucas still have the balls to make that kind of film now?)

    As for me, yes this is an extremely strong lineup. Indy, Cloverfield and Iron Man will hopefully be guaranteed to be high quality (fingers crossed). Benjamin Button is directed by David Fincher, which is a guaranteed sell for me. Most of the other films should quite good in concept – I’m even intrigued by the Tale Of Two Sisters remake as I found the original to be quite dependent on South Korean culture and sensibilities, so I’m interested in how they’re going to Westernise it…

  • Rob Uthe

    I have watched Raiders recently, and, yes, it is still great. I just mean that the new one, regardless of how good it will be objectively, will still be compared to the impact the original had on me as a child. However, I am still extremely excited that Crystal Skull is finally coming out, and I hope that Lucas and Spielberg don’t pull any punches.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    Still amazes me to this day that the guy who once made films with kids and dogs getting eaten by monstrous sharks and guys’ faces melting (boy, did THAT leave an impression on a very young Rev., seeing it at the local drive-in…) is the guy now erasing guns from his old films. I mean, Raiders has probably the best “violence played for laughs” bit in film history; I just don’t know if the Spielberg today can live up to that sort of thing.

  • Karl Allen

    I think Ken’s talked about how sometimes the people responsible for promoting a film are really disconnected from the makers, and thus often either misrepresent the film or reveal things they shouldn’t. I think maybe the former is going on with the latest “Cloverfield” commercial. The tagline is “In only five days…we fight back!” Now maybe I’m wrong, but that’s not the vibe I’m getting from Cloverfield. It looks more like a “Desperate struggle to survive” kind of flick. “We fight back” sounds like it would better fit something like Independence Day or Battlefield Earth.

    Anyone else got the idea that maybe the person who wrote that commercial doesn’t “get” the movie he’s been asked to promote?

  • fish eye no miko

    Karl Allen said : “Now maybe I’m wrong, but that’s not the vibe I’m getting from Cloverfield. It looks more like a ‘Desperate struggle to survive’ kind of flick. ‘We fight back’ sounds like it would better fit something like Independence Day or Battlefield Earth.
    Anyone else got the idea that maybe the person who wrote that commercial doesn’t ‘get’ the movie he’s been asked to promote?”

    I’ve not seen that ad, but yeah, that doesn’t sound like what the movie is about at all.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    I’d agree on that being off-kilter. Other than the desultory shot of the military preparing to fight I’ve seen nothing but people shrieking and running like hell, planning how to try and escape, or living it up before dying. “We fight back” doesn’t fit what I’m thinking this movie’s about.