Forthcoming distractions

What's that zooming through the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a franchise being revived for the summer blockbuster season. Last year, Batman was given the kiss of life. This year, Superman Returns gives another caped hero the same treatment in a bid to breathe fresh life into the franchise that stalled on a shabby fourth instalment nearly two decades ago.

Although many critics and fans were kind to the makeover given to the masked righter of wrongs, Batman Begins doesn't figure among the UK's top ten films of 2005. He's been overtaken in the chart by the likes of a teenage wizard, a magical nanny, a pair of Plasticine heroes and a chocolate-maker.

The list of the UK's highest grossing movies reveals three sequels, several remakes, a literary adaptation and an animated feature. Expect much the same in 2006. Hollywood may have been disappointed by this summer's sluggish blockbuster season and the disappointment of late entry Peter Jackson's King Kong remake, but it's too late to change what to show in the next 12 months. Scripts were edited, stars signed up and green lights given long before executives could analyse what went wrong in 2005.

Release dates have been set already although, in the case of the delayed new James Bond thriller Casino Royale, the cameras don't start rolling until next month. The makers have finally settled on a new 007 in the form of Daniel Craig and an old director Martin Campbell returning to ensure audiences are both shaken and stirred by the new Bond when Casino Royale opens on November 17.

Before that, Craig will be seen in Munich, the latest from Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg, who made it immediately after finishing War Of The Worlds. The film, set in the aftermath of the 1972 Olympics terrorist attack, tells how a Mossad agent tracks down the assassins of the Israeli athletes.

Munich is among the releases in January, a month in which distributors send out their most prestigious offerings in the hope of picking up an award or two during the pre-Oscars prize-giving by Bafta, critics' circles and directors' guilds.

Spielberg is one of a bunch of previously-honoured directors with new work on view. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon director Ang Lee makes up for the ridiculous and not-so-incredible Hulk with Brokeback Mountain, destined to be known as the gay cowboy picture, a description that's not only succinct but true. The film, laden with Golden Globe awards and hotly tipped for an Oscar or two, did the rounds of the international festivals in 2005 and finally opens in British cinemas next week. Already, it's an early contender for one of 2006's best movies as cowboys Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal cuddle up as homos on the range.

Woody Allen makes a comeback, after the limited release of his last few movies, with his first made-in-London picture, Match Point, featuring a tantalisingly provocative Scarlett Johannsen. Neil Jordan's Breakfast On Pluto revisits themes - gender bending, Irish terrorists and childhood trauma - featured in the Irish director's previous works and features a star turn from Cillian Murphy as a man who enjoys being a girl.

Before January is out, two more award-winning directors will be showing off new work. Brit Sam Mendes follows American Beauty and The Road To Perdition with the Gulf War movie Jarhead, while Chicago director Rob Marshall translates the bestselling Memoirs Of A Geisha to the screen.

Terrence Malik, a film-maker more noted for quality than quantity with just four movies in 30 years, takes a fresh look at the Pocahontas story in The New World.

The Disney people, of course, did the same story as a cartoon, following the Hollywood tradition of remaking anything that moves. The trend continues with more retreads, which may be entertaining but are essentially unnecessary.

Fun With Dick And Jane, the comedy about an affluent couple turning to crime after losing their income, was a modest hit for George Segal and Jane Fonda in 1977. Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni go robbing the rich to fund their lavish lifestyle in the new version, finally released after going over budget and reshoots.

Horror fans get misty-eyed about John Carpenter's 1980 The Fog, in which Jamie Lee Curtis fought off killer smog. Smallville's Clarke Kent, actor Tom Welling, does the same in the remake. His Cheaper By The Dozen 1 and 2 co-star Steve Martin foolishly tries to play Peter Sellers playing Inspector Clouseau in a totally needless remake of The Pink Panther. This one has been sitting on the shelf for some time and the dreadful trailer gives a clue why.

Poseidon is, according to lead actor Josh Lucas, "an absolute reinvention" of The Poseidon Adventure, the 1972 disaster movie in which a liner turned turtle plunging famous faces into the water. Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss are among those getting wet this time.

Oh look, someone thought, if we remake hit 1976 horror movie The Omen we can release it on June 6, 2006. That's 666, the devil's number. And to ensure everyone gets the point we'll call it Omen 666. Why can't they leave well alone? The original with Gregory Peck and Lee Remick raising Satan's offspring was great.

Unhappily, there's no let-up in sequels. The numbers keep adding up. Scary Movie 4 is a really frightening thought, but not half as scary as the thought of Martin Lawrence in Big Momma's House 2. Sharon Stone will be crossing her fingers and possibly uncrossing her legs in the hope that Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction can help her career.

But the competition is really tough with Sin City 2, Final Destination 3, The Little Polar Bear 2, The Fast And The Furious 3, Garfield 2, Jackass 2, and Santa Clause 3 waiting to be let out. Underworld: Evolution tries to trick the audience by omitting a number. Don't be fooled - this is Underworld 2, not a comedy set in Coronation Street's knicker factory but a horror movie sequel with Kate Beckinsale.

There are bright spots among the feeling of dj vu, although hopefully the departure of X-Men 3 director Matthew (Layer Cake) Vaughn a month before shooting isn't a bad omen.

Despite the brilliant Johnny Depp's return as Captain Jack Sparrow, it's doubtful if Pirates Of The Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest can recapture the freshness of the original. Whatever people think, there'll be a Mission: Impossible 3 which will undoubtedly find Tom Cruise's agent Ethan Hunt doing daring stunts in a convoluted plot about... who knows? It's easier finding out about the star's love life with Katie Holmes than the plot of M:I3.

Cruise won't be expecting any awards but others have their eyes on the prize. Jamie Foxx won a 2005 best actor Oscar as singer Ray Charles in Ray and Joaquin Phoenix may well do the same for his portrayal of another rebellious singer, Johnny Cash, in Walk The Line. Heath Ledger, a certain nominee for Brokeback Mountain, gets all romantic in another film about legendary lover Casanova, while Philip Seymour Hoffman is already collecting praise for his portrayal of writer Truman Capote in Capote.

Anthony Hopkins may be recognised as the real life New Zealander who broke the land speed record in 1967 in The World's Fastest Indian. The Indian in the title is a make of motorcycle not a native American. Already an Oscar-winner for Monster, Charlize Theron does what voters like and looks unglamorous as she takes on miners harassing female co-workers in North Country.

If you want serious cinema, then George Clooney's your man with not one but two thought-provoking movies. Syriana is writer-director Stephen Gaghan's look at the global oil industry with a bearded Clooney as a CIA operative. Then, in Good Night And Good Luck, he directs "a scathing indictment of mo dern media and the politics of fear" in the story of McCarthy fighting broadcaster Ed Murrow.