As another summer of superhero films and sequels draws to a close, Hollywood is revving up for a crowded fall stocked with James Bond, vampire romance and historical dramas.
For the most part, that means the movie business is ready to hang up the tights and capes and again start making movies for audiences who can legally drive.
Boasting new offerings from directing greats such as Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee and Paul Thomas Anderson, this fall is bound to offer its fair share of masterpieces, critical darlings and love'emorhate'em exercises in the kind of adventurous filmmaking that has been absent from screens in recent months.
But not every film is about chasing Oscars and critical accolades. For popcorn movie lovers, there are plenty of action films and 3D flicks to keep the box office humming, including Peter Jackson's first film in his Hobbit trilogy and the final chapter in the Twilight franchise.
To whet your appetite, here's a look at 10 fall films we can't wait to see.
SKYFALL
Cast: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes
Director: Sam Mendes
Release Date: Nov. 9
Risk Factors: Delayed for years because of MGM's financial problems, does James Bond still have a licence to excite? While Casino Royale was a box office and critical smash, some griped that 007's last outing, Quantum of Solace, was a humourless affair.
Why We're Psyched: Skyfall has finally given Bond a formidable adversary in Javier Bardem, the actor whose Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men still haunts moviegoers' dreams. v
LIFE OF PI
Cast: Suraj Sharma, Irrfran Khan, Tobey Maguire
Director: Ang Lee
Release Date: Nov. 21
Risk Factors: It's the story of a boy trapped in a boat with a Bengal tiger. There's a good chance the whole thing could come off as unintentionally hilarious, not to mention outright bizarre.
Why We're Psyched: Come on, it's Ang Lee. And this time the visionary Brokeback Mountain director is working in 3-D. If the story holds together, Lee may have pulled off a film that is as revolutionary as Martin Scorsese's Hugo or James Cameron's Avatar.
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro
Director: David O. Russell
Release Date: Nov. 21
Risk Factors: Russell is a prodigious talent, but his screenplays veer from brilliant (Three Kings) to bizarre (I Heart Huckabees). In this film, about a man struggling to reclaim his life after a stint in a mental institution, he's working without his muse, Mark Wahlberg, who grounded Russell's flights of fancy.
Why We're Psyched: With the Oscar-nominated The Fighter fresh in the minds of moviegoers, the idiosyncratic auteur is back after a decade spent in the wilderness. Also, Cooper has been a likable presence in films like The Hangover, but here he finally gets a chance to stretch and show audiences that he's more than just a pretty face.
ARGO
Cast: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman
Director: Ben Affleck
Release Date: Oct. 12
Risk Factors: The 1979 Iranian hostage crisis is at the centre of the film, and while it may be distant history, the Middle East remains a hotbed of political instability. War films like The Hurt Locker and Jarhead have impressed critics, but audiences have shown little interest in seeing dramatized what plays out on the news every night.
Why We're Psyched: With The Town, Affleck proved he's a smart, sensitive director who choreographs killer action sequences. This true story about a gonzo escape plan that involved CIA agents posing as filmmakers to rescue hostages has all the makings of a whacked out masterpiece in The Three Kings vein.
CLOUD ATLAS
Cast: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw
Director: Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski
Release Date: Oct. 26
Risk Factors: Based on the trailer, this story about various lives intersecting across the past, present and future features Hanks and Berry in an awful lot of embarrassing wigs. It is also redolent of The Fountain, another heady film that played with time and space, but collapsed under the weight of its ambitions.
Why We're Psyched: The Wachowskis have a talent for blending big ideas with tentpole special effects in films like The Matrix. Cloud Atlas boasts a big canvas, with dazzling special effects and camera work.
ZERO DARK THIRTY
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Kyle Chandler, Jessica Chastain, Edgar Ramirez
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Release Date: Dec. 19
Risk Factors: Sony chose to release the film after the election so the studio can't be accused of trying to bolster Barack Obama's chances by recounting the daring story behind the killing of Osama bin Laden. That said, it arrives with controversy and charges from Republican politicians that Bigelow was given access to classified information. Will it be too much of a political hot potato to judge on its own merits?
Why We're Psyched: Bigelow returns to the battlefield after revolutionizing the war film with The Hurt Locker. Can lighting strike twice?
THE MASTER
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Release Date: Sept. 14
Risk Factors: A thinly fictionalized portrait of the world's most secretive and controversial religion. Expect an uproar from Scientologists and an intense debate over Hoffman's portrayal of a charlatan who sounds a lot like L. Ron Hubbard.
After annoying us with his faux breakdown and fake documentary I'm Not There, Phoenix is on a very short leash.
Why We're Psyched: The last time Anderson was behind a camera, he gave us There Will Be Blood, a haunting, magisterial work that ranks among the greatest movies ever made. If the euphoric reaction to early test screenings is any indication, he just might have another masterpiece on his hands.
DJANGO UNCHAINED
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio
Director: Quentin Tarantino Release Date: Dec. 25
Risk Factors: It's a bloody action film set in the antebellum South, so its depiction of slavery could stir up charges of racial insensitivity for a director whose fondness for a certain "N" word has already made him a target for precisely that kind of criticism.
Why We're Psyched: With Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino proved that in the right hands, even the Nazis can be the subject of brilliant, escapist fare.
Django looks like another dazzling trip down the rabbit hole, with cinema's foremost genre mashup maestro as a guide.
Likewise, DiCaprio has a role that will allow him to flex the comic muscles he deployed so well in Catch Me If You Can.
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN - PART 2
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Kristen Stewart
Director: Bill Condon
Release Date: Nov. 16
Risk Factors: There was this girl named Kristen who cheated on this guy named Rob, breaking the hearts of millions of Twi-hards in the process.
Why We're Psyched: The final film in one of the biggest franchises in movie history. Enough said.
THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage
Director: Peter Jackson
Release Date: Dec. 14
Risk Factors: Will there be enough story to justify a trilogy?
Also, The director's decision to shoot the film at a sped-up, 48 frames per second has been a controversial one. Early footage at CinemaCon was criticized by theatre owners and members of the press. Warner Bros.'s decision to cut the number of theatres that will show the film at a higher frame rate may have ended this particular technological revolution before the first shots were fired.
Why We're Psyched: It's Peter Jackson returning to Middle Earth. Attention must be paid.
