Will The All-Star Cast Ensemble Continue To Work Wonders?

Do you think a star studded cast is still one of the most important ingredients to create a major blockbuster nowadays? In reality, there were good number of box office flops despite how stellar and lustrous was the cast those films have. Certain, while the lineup alone should attract moviegoers to go watch a given film, but not all these ensemble cast movies are created the same. At times some of those just don’t live up to the impressive list of performers it’s made up of, no matter how notable it is. So, what will happen to these upcoming movies that possibly still consider their huge stars are one of the main keys of success?


CONTAGION

“Ocean's Eleven” I guess is still one of the most well known ensemble cast movies, and now throw names like Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne and Gwyneth Paltrow into the mix of his new film, can director Steven Soderbergh who has successfully worked with an ensemble of Hollywood’s elite in “Ocean” create another enjoyable film again?
“Contagion” story will follow the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days. As the fast-moving epidemic grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself. At the same time, ordinary people struggle to survive in a society coming apart. Matt Damon plays Thomas Emhoff who, according to the trailer, is an everyman whose wife Beth Emhoff (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) is among the first people infected. Because he came into contact with his wife, Thomas and his kids are considered infected and are prevented from fleeing their home, leading to a desperate attempt to escape. Marion Cotillard plays Dr. Leonora Orantes, a member of an international team of doctors fighting the worldwide outbreak that is at the center of the story. Laurence Fishburne plays Dr. Ellis Cheever, leader of the CDC task force fighting the virus. Jude Law is Alan Krumwiede who’s having a good deal of knowledge regarding the virus and Kate Winslet is Dr. Erin Mears, one Fishburne‘s team of CDC doctors. Scott Z. Burns, writer of “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “The Informant!”, penned a script that sounds like taking the best parts of Soderbergh’s “Traffic” and applying it to the fear of deadly disease, a topic that’s barely been touched upon in a realistic setting and would be a pleasant escape from the usual disease-causes-zombies premise.


TOWER HEIST

Helmed by Brett Ratner, the ensemble cast of this crime comedy film featuring Ben Stiller, Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick, Eddie Murphy, Alan Alda, Michael Pena, Tea Leoni and Gabourey Sidibe. The story itself follows a group of people who work in a wealthy New York City high rise building. When the building’s penthouse resident (Oscar-nominee Alan Alda, playing a Bernie Madoff-like scumbag) defrauds everyone in the building, the motley crew (led by Stiller) recruits a criminal (Murphy) to help them steal their money back. Ratner is not what you’d call a beloved filmmaker, but he’s at his best when working in the action-comedy genre and this could be one of those movies where the supporting players are the ones that end up stealing the show.


NEW YEAR’S EVE

Garry Marshal directed film that originally intended as the sequel to the 2010 star-bursting film “Valentine's Day” is stars Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Biel, Ashton Kutcher, Héctor Elizondo, Katherine Heigl, Lea Michele, Abigail Breslin, Hilary Swank, Zac Efron, Sofia Vergara, Halle Berry, Sarah Jessica Parker, Josh Duhamel, Til Schweiger, Ryan Seacrest, Jon Bon Jovi, Ludacris, Seth Meyers and Greg Kinnear. Well, that already sounded like one of the most crowded New Year’s eves ever.
The footage offers a montage of these characters preparing for the annual ritual of New Year's Eve holiday parties, showing the lives of several couples and singles in New York City intertwine over the course of the day. All the hallmarks unfold for the ultimate date night movie: the Times Square ball drop, New Year's resolutions, babies born, laughter, tears, Champagne popping, and the countdown to midnight. And here are some of the plotlines we can look forward to in New Year’s Eve:
# Biel and Meyers play an expectant couple hoping to deliver on New Year’s Day in order to win a $25,000 prize.

# Bon Jovi’s character is a rock star who runs into his caterer ex, played by Heigl.

# Duhamel’s character hopes to reunite with a girl he met and fell in love with last New Year’s Eve.

# Pfeiffer plays an executive secretary who enlists Efron’s character’s help in fulfilling some last-minute New Year’s resolutions.

# DeNiro’s character is a bitter old man dying in a hospital.

# Kutcher plays a guy who hates New Year’s Eve, and it’s pretty obvious from the trailer that he’ll end up falling for Michele’s character.

# Swank plays the producer of the big Times Square event; her love interest is played by Ludacris.


HAYWIRE

Another Steven Soderbergh’s film with all-star male cast includes Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum, Bill Paxton, and Michael Angarano who must fight the only female key character played by MMA fighter Gina Carano. The plot of this all out action film will be pretty familiar (which is a nice way of saying that it will be unoriginal), but an all-star cast paired with Soderbergh’s style should make “Haywire” into a highly anticipated film, and it’s seriously quite refreshing to see a female-driven action film that doesn’t involve Angelina Jolie.
Primarily filmed in Ireland, “Haywire” focuses on freelance covert operative Mallory Kane who’s hired out by her handler to various global entities to perform jobs which governments can’t authorize and heads of state would rather not know about. After a mission to rescue a hostage in Barcelona, Mallory is quickly dispatched on another mission to Dublin. When the operation goes awry and Mallory finds she has been double crossed, she needs to use all of her skills, tricks and abilities to escape an international manhunt, make it back to the United States, protect her family, and exact revenge on those that have betrayed her.


HUGO

An upcoming 3D family adventure drama film based on Brian Selznick's novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”, it’s directed by Martin Scorsese and stars child actors Asa Butterfield and Chloë Moretz who co-starred by an ensemble cast consisted of Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ray Winstone, Christopher Lee, Emily Mortimer and Jude Law. Since Scorsese remains an undeniably capable filmmaker who has worked in a variety of genres, with solid results in the past, it’s no wonder that his films boast an excellent list of ensemble cast.
“Hugo” tells the story of an orphan boy living a secret life in the walls of a Paris train station. With the help of an eccentric girl, he searches for the answer to a mystery linking the father he recently lost, the ill-tempered toy shop owner living below him and a heart shaped lock, seemingly without a key.


MOVIE 43

A feature film consists of short comedy segments directed by Elizabeth Banks, Steven Brill, Steve Carr, Rusty Cundieff, James Duffy, Griffin Dunne, and Peter Farrelly. If you look at the star cast of “Movie 43” there are lots more of surprises because many Hollywood super stars are part of this film. Complete star cast of this includes Elizabeth Banks herself, Emma Stone, Kristen Bell, Gerard Butler, Chloe Moretz, Richard Gere, Stephen Merchant, Anna Faris, Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman, josh Duhamel, Naomi Watts, Kate Bosworth, Uma Thurman, Kieran Culkin, Seann William Scott and Justin Long.