The winter months (after the holidays of course) are usually dumping grounds for studios. While still having very few critical successes, this January found a great audience for The Devil Inside, which set an early January record with $33 million, and Contraband smuggled in $24 million just one week later. While April usually indicates a strong upswing in terms of the quality of films released, there are some surprisingly high-profile releases this February and March and could help propel 2012 to an incredibly strong year at the Box Office.
Woman in Black(Feb. 3) marks Daniel Radcliffe’s first major movie since wrapping the Harry Potter series. The film is a remake of a 1989 film of the same name, Radcliffe’s on-screen father in Potter Adrian Rawlins starred in the older version. Safe House (Feb. 10) stars Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds in a film that could be described as story like Assault on Precinct 13 and characters like Training Day. Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson and Robert Patrick also star. The Secret World of Arrietty (Feb. 17) will give audiences a look at what might cause our creaking floorboards. Arrietty is a borrower, a tiny person only 10 cm tall that lives under typical floorboards and “borrows” what they can get away with. Unfortunately Sho’s great aunt grows to be curious of the floorboards and the borrowers may be forced to leave their home. Act of Valor (Feb. 24) is the first of its kind. Though it took some time to secure them, the film has eight active-duty Navy SEALS as its stars, though none will appear in the credits. Valor will take viewers on a journey with the most highly-trained group of soldiers in the world as they rescue a CIA operative and learn of a terrifying terrorist plot against the U.S. Todd Phillips, director of The Hangover produces Project X (Mar. 2). Some teens throw a party to become part of the crowd when things get increasingly out of control because of word of mouth. The trailer looks totally outrageous, but can that carry an entire film? Time will tell. The Raven (Mar. 9) chronicles a fictitious account of the life of Edgar Allen Poe. John Cusack stars and Poe must help to catch a killer which is using his works of fiction as a guidebook for murder. 21 Jump Street (Mar. 16) resurrects the 80’s program, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are cops placed inside a school to break up a drug ring. According to imdb.com Johnny Depp has a cameo role which was written by Jonah Hill. The Hunger Games (Mar. 23) may not be on everyone’s radar but it is easily one of the top five anticipated films of the year. Will it break the Box Office in a similar way to Twilight or Harry Potter? Most likely it will. The film blends terrific young talents Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth with Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci and Donald Sutherland in a film about a futuristic society which makes two children from each of its districts fight one another to the death each year. The Cabin in the Woods (Apr. 16) looks like typical slasher fare at first but then the preview points to something even a little more ominous than a maniacal killer wielding the nearest instrument of death. Think the television series Persons Unknown meets Friday the 13th. In Lock-Out (Apr. 20), Guy Pearce stars as a man accused of conspiring to commit espionage, but is offered his freedom if he is able to rescue the President’s daughter from a galactic prison taken over by dangerous inmates.
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