2011 Will Be The Pinnacle of Superhero Cinema

So this is what it's come to. Thor, Captain America, Spider-Man 4, Transformer 3, the last Harry Potter movie and Sin City 3; all dropping around the summer of 2011. And those are just the movies that are definitely coming out: We3, Deathlok, Shang-Chi, Luke Cage, Shazam, Doom Patrol, Teen Titans and Ghost Rider 2 are all "strong possibilities". What the hell?

Just for the sake of sanity, let's focus on those first six. First Marvel scheduled "Thor" to come out on July 16, 2010. Which was fine, until they realized that they hadn't even chosen an actor yet, much less started filming, and with special effects and post-production work, there'd be no way "Thor" would be ready by then. So Marvel pushed it back a year, to 7/16/2011, which would be fine…except that "Captain America" was scheduled to be released one week later, on July 22, 2011. Naturally, it wouldn't make a ton of sense to have two big-budget films cutting into each other's potential profits, so "Thor" got moved again, to May 20, 2011, with the hope being that it will pick up any potential box office slack from "Spider-Man 4", which comes out on May 6, 2011. Incidentally, all this movement (along with the 2010 release of Iron Man 2, and the upcoming Hulk and Nick Fury films) is meant to lay a path to the May 4, 2012 release of "The Avengers". Still with me? OK.

Now Dreamworks saw this going on, and essentially said, "Well, we're not just going to cede an entire summer to Marvel and Paramount." So despite having no writer, director or having either Shia LeBouf or Megan Fox signed on, Dreamworks went ahead and announced a July 1, 2011 release date for "Transformers 3", following a trend where they've tried to tie the Transformers franchise to the Fourth of July weekend; the first Transformers came out July 3, 2007, and "Revenge of the Fallen" opens on June 24, a week before the holiday. Hey, this is kinda like a chess match!

So Marvel, Dreamworks and Paramount look to have their schedules worked out in a way that each feels they can maximize profits, while screwing over their competitors…but then the wild cards entered the equation. Warner Bros. decided to stick a big middle finger in everyone's faces, by releasing the eighth and final Harry Potter movie, the second half of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", on July 15, 2011! And finally, we have the biggest unknown: Sin City 3. Now, unlike the rest of these films, Sin 3 (based on the Miller book "Hell and Back", and set to star Johnny Depp), doesn't have a set release date - yet. Director Robert Rodriguez, to his credit, has stated that he doesn't want to focus on that until he's finishing up Sin City 2. However, rumors are starting to abound that Dimension Films, part of the Weinstein Company, is seriously looking to drop Sin 3 right in the middle of the mayhem, thinking that a duplication of the strong reviews and profits from Sin City 1 could damage the box office showings of these other movies.

So, quick review:

Spider-Man 4     -     May 6, 2011

Thor     -     May 20, 2011

Transformers 3     -     July 1, 2011

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows     -     July 15, 2011

The First Avenger: Captain America     -     July 22, 2011

Sin City 3     -    WHO THE HELL KNOWS

And this doesn't even include the other "maybe's" listed earlier. Are they trying to get me to download crappy handheld cam versions? Maybe I'll just sneak into theater, like I used to when I was 14 and trying to get into rated-R movies. God, that's going to be an insane couple of months…