A change of director. Multiple release date changes. By all accounts, The Wolfman should be a turkey to avoid at all costs. Yet a stunning string of marketing materials (in particular its moody trailers) reveals a richly gothic monster movie which has the potential to scare, while raking in the big bucks during these lycanthrope friendly times.

A remake of the 1941 horror classic, Benicio Del Toro stars as an American who returns to his homeland of Victorian era-Great Britain after he receives word his brother has disappeared. During his investigation Lawrence survives an attack by a strange creature, and is given a curse set to unleash the beast within.

Emily Blunt co-stars as Del Toro’s love interest, and Anthony Hopkins lends his gravitas as the father who urges his son to accept his destiny and “kill, or be killed”. Joe Johnston (Jurassic Park III) directs.      

Following one of the biggest blockbusters of 2008 will not be an easy feat, yet director Jon Favreau and co. will attempt to do just that with the star packed superhero sequel, Iron Man 2.

Robert Downey Jr. returns as military industrialist cum superhero Tony Stark / Iron Man. Revelling in the peak of his celebrity, Stark is brought back down to Earth when vengeful Russian super villain Whiplash (fellow comeback kid Mickey Rourke) comes on the scene thirsting for Stark’s blood.

Don Cheadle replaces Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes (in full War Machine mode), and Scarlett Johnansson will play undercover spy, Black Widow. Gwentyh Paltrow will return as Stark’s love interest, Pepper Potts.

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Gladiator in tights? Or, will Robin Hood, the latest Russel Crowe / Ridley Scott collaboration, be more than a retread of their celebrated work?

Judging by the mass outpouring of promotional material, this latest depiction of the mythical outlaw is sure to be a big, bloody, uber serious one, with Crowe channelling his patented brooding macho swagger in his depiction of the legendary figure.

Making things that more interesting is the casting of Cate Blanchett as Maid Marian, with the pairing of two of Australia’s best talents in the one film a must see on its own.   

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The combination of Johnny Depp, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, and writer/director Bruce Robinson (Withnail and I) seems quite the natural fit, and are the creative forces behind the highly anticipated drama The Rum Diary.

Based on Thompson’s novel of the same name, Depp stars as a freelance journalist who travels from New York to Puerto Rico to write for run-down newspaper, drowning himself in rum and obsessing over the fiancé (Amber Heard) of a business man (Aaron Eckhart) he has befriended.

The idea of watching Depp in a movie that is not directed by Tim Burton or featuring pirates is a refreshing one. Production has wrapped for the film, but no official release date has been set.

What is a Terrence Malick film without a little mystery? And, in typical Malick tradition, his latest anticipated release The Tree of Life offers very little in terms of pre-release info, in spite of these internet spoiler times.

This much is known: what was once touted as one ambitious project has turned into three; a feature length film starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn; an IMAX release titled Voyage of Time; and another film that is neither a feature nor an IMAX release, but something different altogether.

For the meantime, let us focus on the feature film, which stars Penn and Pitt as father and son in a 1950s period piece of a Midwestern boy’s journey from the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as a "lost soul in the modern world”.

Oh, and supposedly there will be dinosaurs.

Kudos to you, Mr. Malick, for keeping some sense of mystery in cinema.

Gibbo’s return in front of the lens is sure to be a cracker.

Sorry for the over enthusiastic use of Aussie jargon, but Mel Gibson was one of the most consistently entertaining leading men of the 1980s and 1990s, and his return in this slick looking revenge thriller (a Gibson specialty) Edge of Darkness looks like quite the Riggs-esque throwback, indeed.   

Taking inspiration from 2009s supreme thriller State of Play, this Hollywood adaptation of the popular BBC mini-series stars Gibson as a Boston cop out to avenge the murder of his daughter, delving into a vast political conspiracy in the process.

Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) will direct. Ray Winstone and Danny Huston co-star. Gibson will kick ass.

Officially pushed back from its 2009 release date after Paramount decided to put all of its Oscar might behind Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated Shutter Island promises to be every bit the character driven chiller its stellar theatrical trailer(s) has touted it to be.

The third adaptation of a Dennis Lehane novel (Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone the previous two), Shutter Island stars Scorsese regular Leonardo DiCaorio as a U.S. Marshal assigned to investigate the disappearance of an inmate at a hospital for the criminally insane. Suffice to say, weird things begin to happen to DiCaprio....

A cracking cast featuring Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, and Michelle Williams give even more reason to view what could be Scorsese’s latest masterpiece.  

The equivalent of an action junkie’s wet dream, The Expendables boasts an inspiring cast of current and former action hero’s teaming up and duking it out in what will be a cheese-a-riffic orgy of fisticuffs and explosions.

Writer/ director / star Sylvester Stallone leads a crack team of mercenaries (among them Jason Statham and Jet Li) on a mission to overthrow a South American dictator.

Randy Couture, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and Eric Roberts also star. Yet it is the tantalising prospect of seeing Stallone share the screen with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis that makes this a must see.   

Following up the monster which was The Dark Knight will be a daunting task for any filmmaker. Yet if that filmmaker happens to be Christopher Nolan, than any and all concerns should be brushed away, since this is a man who has delivered the goods time after time.

And again it seems for his latest, the mind bending sci-fi thriller Inception. Flanked by two adequetly confusing yet well executed teaser trailers, the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as some sort of spy whose mission is to steal an idea poised to change the world.

Other plot details are not available, and hopefully never will be, since this looks like the kind of film best watched without too much info clogging the brain. Has the potential to be Nolan’s best.     

A change of personnel (Brad Pitt and Darren Aronofsky out; Christian Bale and David O. Russell in) stopped The Fighter from gracing the silver screen in 2009. But this year’s loss is next year’s gain, with this true life boxing tale sure to be a knockout.

Mark Wahlberg stars in this true story of boxer “Irish” Mickey Ward, and his brother/trainer Dickie Eklund (Christian Bale), who together rose through the boxing ranks to win the win the world light heavyweight title.

Wahlberg had been prepping for the part for years and is poised to give a career best performance. Ditto Bale, who has gone the method-weight loss-prosthetics route to play the drug addled Eklund.

Oscar nominees Amy Adams and Melissa Leo co-star (the former playing Wahlberg’s girlfriend), while the inspirational choice of David O. Russell will rejoin his Three Kings cohort Wahlberg in what has the potential to be a lively shoot.

As to where The Fighter will fit in the boxing film pedigree, look for it to fit comfortably between Rocky and Raging Bull.