Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund - "Tron: Legacy" (2010) - Walt Disney Pictures
film.com - Eclipse, Tron, Scream, Harry Potter... the year in sequels is shaping up nicely.
We admit it: we're suckers for sequels. And while 2010 is chock full of reboots (Nightmare on Elm Street, with a new Freddy), remakes (The Karate Kid, as played by ... Jaden Smith?), and adaptations (Machete!!!) the year boasts its fair share of highly anticipated sequels. Whether you're craving more dancing, vamping, wizarding, or straight-up people-killing in the year to come, here are the continued adventures and resuscitated franchises we're looking forward to most in 2010, in order of release date.
Piranha 3-D (April 16): Joe Dante's 1978 horror parody Piranha had a simple, silly premise: killer fish are loose in the water, and they want to nibble you to death with their tiny, razor-sharp teeth! (In the 1981 sequel, Piranha II: Flying Killers -- the directorial debut of James Cameron, a modest filmmaker you may have heard of -- the creatures go one step further and mutate into flying fish.) So what better way to celebrate the return of 3-D gimmickry to horror filmmaking than with a star-studded sequel in 2010? Thrill as the likes of Elisabeth Shue and Jerry O'Connell battle the prehistoric piranha in three dimensions! Delight as Richard Dreyfuss discovers there's something else in the water other than sharks! Wonder where Christopher Lloyd's career has gone in the last decade or so when his highest-profile project in recent memory is a movie called Piranha 3-D!
Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps (April 23): It's been over two decades and Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is a changed man. Fresh out of prison, all he wants is to patch things up with his estranged daughter (Carey Mulligan), and to do it he'll give her trader fiancé (Shia LaBeouf) a quickie lesson in Corporate Warfare 101 so he can get revenge on a shady associate (Josh Brolin). Oliver Stone's first-ever sequel sounds more like it treads thriller territory than the financial dramarama of 1987's Wall Street, but we'll take it -- anything for another peek at the once-ruthless corporate warrior, who remains one of the most terrifying villains in a suit to ever grace the screen. Alright, who are we kidding? We mostly want to glimpse real-life lovebirds Mulligan and LaBeouf canoodling on-screen. But the return of Gordon Gekko's pretty cool, too.
Iron Man 2 (May 7): After making fanboys and girls swoon in the summer of 2008, Marvel's power-suited hero had pop culture's heart on lock. And once we saw the first trailers for the 2010 sequel, we were sold. Heck, Jon Favreau and Co. can even keep using the same Black Sabbath track in every trailer from now until Iron Man 10 and we'll keep coming back for more. This May, Tony Stark comes out of the superhero closet to embrace fandom -- and, like all super stars must, deal with the crazy psycho weirdos who become obsessed and stalk him and want to wear his skin as their clothes. Or rather, his Iron Man suit, which new baddie Whiplash replicates with his own unique twist: electro-powered whips. Even the new Rhodey (Don Cheadle) has a case of suit envy, getting into the spirit in his own War Machine outfit. And speaking of outfits, did you see ScarJo in black leather? How many more reasons do you need to put Iron Man 2 on your 2010 calendar?
Toy Story 3 (June 18): If you thought Toy Story 2 was existential and deep, get ready for even more introspection in this highly anticipated summer threequel. This time around little Andy is all grown up, and like all kids, he no longer needs his toys. So Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and Co. hit the road in search of a new home, enduring a classroom full of destructive preschoolers along the way. Will friendship and solidarity prevail? Probably. Take the kids and rest assured this'll be one children's movie you won't sit through in agony. It is Pixar, after all. (For added excitement, see it in 3-D!)
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (June 30): No matter how you feel about the Twilight franchise, it's here, it sparkles, so get used to it! Twi-hards and skeptics alike should take interest in the third installment in the series, for a few reasons. First, Eclipse is much darker in tone than its predecessors, a serial killer movie about vampires on the loose in Seattle (and, as always, teenage bloodsuckers in love). Second, it's directed by genre specialist David Slade, whose previous films are the very scary Hard Candy and the very bloody 30 Days of Night. Third, given the ginormous success of Stephenie Meyer's books and the first two films, isn't it about time you found out what all this Twilight business is about?
Predators (July 9): It's sort of unfair. Ridley Scott's sci-fi masterwork Alien spawned three sequels and two cross-over Alien-Predator spin-off films, but John McTiernan's Predator's only had one sequel to speak of to date. Thankfully, producer Robert Rodriguez will tip the balance in 2010 with Predators, the second sequel about the alien hunter race and their pseudo-space dreadlocks. The unfortunately-named Nimrod Antal directs Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Danny Trejo, Alice Braga, and Laurence Fishburne in a plot about humans who accidentally land on Planet Predator and quickly discover that the locals aren't all that friendly.
Step Up 3-D (August 6): Now that America is unabashedly in love with dancing (thank you, America's Best Dance Crew, So You Think You Can Dance, and Dancing with the Stars), you don't have to hide your excitement for yet another Step Up sequel! Next August, Step Up 2 the Streets director Jon Chu takes his crew to the mean rues of Paris, where MSA nerd-popper Moose (Adam Sevani, who battled Miley Cyrus in an online dance-off last year) has been left behind like Kevin McAllister in Home Alone 2 and joins forces with his new French pals to win an international dance competition. Former Step Up stars Briana Evigan, Robert Hoffman, and Channing Tatum show up, along with SYTYCD alums Twitch, Katee, Joshua, and Ivan. And did I mention it's in 3-D??
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One (November 19): We Muggles have waited long enough to see the final chapters of the Harry Potter saga play out, and we want our Deathly Hallows, already! Part One hits theaters in November, catching up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they prepare for the final battle against the evil Voldemort. Director David Yates returns after helming the previous two installments (Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince) with new cast members in the mix (Rade Serbedzija as Gregorovitch, Nicollette Sheridan as Prof. Trelawney, Rhys Ifans as Xenophilius Lovegood, Jamie Campbell Bower as Gellert Grindelwald). Get your wands ready!
TRON: Legacy (December 17): Betcha never thought you'd see Flynn's Arcade again, but nearly three decades after Jeff Bridges rode his light cycle to glory in the original TRON, he'll lead a cast of newcomers back into the game. Expect a visually dazzling update of the familiar world of TRON, now that technology is at a place where we can immerse ourselves into a video game world in realistic fashion. Director Joseph Kosinski, who's also got a Logan's Run project in the works, wowed the crowd at last year's Comic-Con with his ubercool footage -- and if you can please the geeks, you know you're on the right track. With a soundtrack by French electronica duo Daft Punk, TRON 2 could turn out to be the coolest looking and sounding new film of the year.
Scream 4 (TBA): Wes Craven's Scream was an iconic, tongue-in-cheek slasher film of the '90s, and though it spawned a successful franchise, the films arguably got worse with each passing sequel. Now that Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson have had a decade-long break from the series, Williamson is back scripting a new sequel for returning characters Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers, and Deputy Dewey. What's more, he's hoping Scream 4 will kick off an entirely new trilogy! With production tentatively planned for the spring, we might see Scream 4 yet in 2010 ... and, if rumors are true, Wes Craven himself might be back behind the camera.
Honorable mentions: The Strangers 2, Jackass 3, Shrek Forever After, Sex and the City 2, Get Me to the Gig, Little Fockers, Saw VII 3-D, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Dawn Treader, A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas
Jen Yamato writes weekly for Film.com.
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