Well, the summer movie season is officially over, and while box office earnings are way up, it seems like the quality of the films have actually gone way down.  But for every few badly-written movies (like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Transformers 2, and G.I. Joe–though some will say it’s not that bad), there was a diamond in the rough like District 9.  So why were so many movies so bad in the summer of ‘09, even if they did make a lot of money?  Hint: The Writers Strike!

Before the summer began, I wrote an article about how the 2007 Writers Strike might affect the summer 2009 movies.  I speculated that back in 2007, studios were nervous about how long the writers strike could last, leaving them with a possible lack of films for the fall/winter 2008 and all-important summer 2009 season (early May to late August 2009). To make sure they had big films lined up for Summer ‘09, the studios pushed to have their big-budget scripts quick-finished before the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) contracts were up in November 2007 and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in summer of 2008.

This week:

Tom Hanks is the box office champion; Terry Gilliam kills Don Quixote…again; Spider-Man has a new Green Goblin (on stage); the Basterds are online; Toy Story 3 is moving Up; Ewan McGregor won’t be Trainspotting and who are the Six Suspects?

Short version: Angels & Demons is better than The Da Vinci Code and if you’re a fan of the books you’ll probably enjoy it – otherwise… I suppose there are worse ways to kill a couple of hours.

Screen Rant reviews Angels and Demons

I was not a fan of The Da Vinci Code.

Just thought I should get that out there right of the bat. I found that film incredibly boring and dull, and Tom Hanks just didn’t work for me in the role.

Having said that, Angels & Demons is an improvement over the previous film.

We all remember the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike that lasted 100 days (from late 2007 to early 2008) and cost Hollywood a couple of billion dollars in lost wages and revenue.  Sure, plenty of movies went into production anyway so there would be at least some new movies, but without writers to do onset re-writes has the quality suffered?

For example, the recent James Bond film Quantum of Solace; writer Paul Haggis turned in the script right before the WGA strike began in November 2007, and the film started shooting soon after.  Production was well underway by the time the strike ended, so it is possible they had some rewrites done, especially if there were any major reshoots.

They call him Wolverine, and he’s the best at what he does, and what he does is shred the box office with berserker rage!  Okay, enough of the Wolverine analogies, but you can’t help but be impressed with the $87 million haul of X-Men Origins: Wolverine!

What a way to start off the summer–with the 2009 box office up over last year, people are still hungry for movies, even in this economy. Fox need not fret any more about the pirated version that leaked out, hurting the box office, because the Hugh Jackman-starrer proved that people love to see movies in the theaters.

Angels and Demons hasn’t even been released yet, but Columbia Pictures is already planning a third adventure for Tom Hanks’ Robert Langdon.

Dan Brown’s third Langdon adventure, The Lost Symbol is set to go into production soon – even though the book hasn’t been published yet and the plot is unknown (the Freemasons are expected to be involved).

Today Screen Rant has a bunch of new posters for you viewing pleasure: Angels & Demons, Astro Boy and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The first is for the prequel to The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, which is based on the book by Dan Brown. One is in English, the other is in French; The first has a strange and intriguing feel to it – I like it. The second…. hmm, not so much. It’s kind of wasted because of how prominent Tom Hanks is, although I do like the statues and the bright light behind him.

Check them out below and see if you agree (click on them for large versions):

The new trailer for Angels and Demons, the prequel to The Da Vinci Code has been released and it’s better than the first teaser.

I really disliked The Da Vinci Code in theaters and it was the first time I ever disliked Tom Hanks in a movie (and it’s not just because of his hair style in the film). So when I heard of the prequel novel being made into feature film, I was not excited at all.

The first movie unjustly made over three-quarters of a billion dollars ($758,239,851!) despite a poor 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. My expectations of the prequel were that people have learned from watching The Da Vinci Code and will avoid it… At least I would.

We’ve all heard stories of the insane amounts of money it costs to run TV spots during the Super Bowl ($3 million for a 30 second spot this year) but it’s certainly not stopping several of the major studios from debuting their highly-anticipated trailers during this year’s broadcast from Tampa Bay.

The following snippet from a Variety article lists the confirmed trailers:

As it stands, Hollywood studios are deadlocked in their contract negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild. That news stirs up foul memories of a year ago, when the Writers Guild of America was at a similar juncture with the studios… Soon after that there were no TV shows for about half a year.

And we all know what that did last year’s TV season.

Everybody loves Tom Hanks, right?

The everyman actor has a box office golden touch stretching back almost 20 years, and with The Da Vinci Code Hanks made his first film with sequel potential. Okay, I know that we could have seen Turner and Hooch 2 by now, but we won’t get into that!

Hanks returns as Robert Langdon in Ron Howard’s adaptation of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, but one guy who isn’t happy is The Pope.

Sure, he had to have been pretty miffed over the contents of The Da Vinci Code movie (and book) but he isn’t willing to turn the other cheek. His Holiness has now banned the production from filming on the grounds of The Vatican or in any church in Rome.

Sure, it starred a mullet-wearing Forrest Gump and was helmed by Richie Cunningham.

But dammit, if The Da Vinci Code sucked.

However, it made $750 million. So it was obvious that the other best-selling Dan Brown novel Angels & Demons would head to the silver screen too.

After the WGA Strike delayed the adaptation from being finished by screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (i.e. the man who helped ruin Batman before Mr. Nolan fixed everything), the production is now moving full-speed ahead.

Ayelet Zurer (i.e. best known for having flashback sex with Eric Bana in Munich) and Sir Alec Guinness impressionist Ewan McGregor have joined the cast that also includes the returning Tom Hanks – who stands to walk away with a lot of money from this film.

Now that the writer’s strike is in full swing there appears to be quite a few planned films falling at the first hurdle. The most high profile being Angels and Demons, the sequel/prequel/virtual remake of The Da Vinci Code.

This is the film that Akiva Goldsman was paid four million dollars to write. Yes four million and it still needed work. Crazy.

What’s strange about this news, is that Naomi Watts has apparently signed on to play the female lead.