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For more news, interviews and features on 2012's upcoming movies, make sure you get hold of issue 272 of Empire magazine.

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Ginormous Comic-Book Movies
There's no doubt about it: 2012 is the year of the comic-book movie. Barney Ross and James Bond may disagree (violently), as might Bilbo Baggins (slightly less violently), but superhero films are set to clean up this year. So even if your comic book collection amounts to a discarded Beano from 1993 stuck behind your bedroom radiator, there's no way you'll want to miss out on these bad boys...

WORDS ALASTAIR PLUMB

Forget what you remember about 2007's Ghost Rider, because on February 17 Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the guys who brought you Crank, are taking their particular brand of hyper-kinetic action madness to the flame-filled world of Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance. In other words, expect cars to be chain-whipped into mountains, goons to be slung off bridges and Christopher Lambert to prat about with a sword, Highlander-stylee, while Idris Elba plays a motorbike-riding monk. With the trailer featuring Ghost Rider pissing liquid flame, it's not going to get much attention from the Academy, but with Nicolas Cage back on his flaming motorbike with Neveldine/Taylor giving him directions, that's hardly the point.

At first glance, The Avengers (out April 27), seem to have their problems sewn up. The bad guys: Loki. The good guys: Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. No contest, right? Except that it isn't going to be quite that easy. From the trailer and stills we've seen so far, Nick Fury and his band of merry superheroes have a hell of a lot to deal with, from extraterrestrial invaders to, um, each other. Can director and screenwriter, Joss Whedon, balance all these egos and craft one 90 minute package without any particular sub-group of Marvel fanboys flipping their collective lids? Can he do it with characters who have already carried their own films (Cap, Iron Man, Thor and The Hulk) competing with two that haven't (Hawkeye and Black Widow)? If anyone can, it's surely the man who so expertly created and juggled the group dynamics of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly. The only difference is that this time, instead of a small but fanatical group of TV fans, he has every movie fan in the world watching – but we have the strange feeling that that's only going to spur him on to greater heights.

Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in The Amazing Spider-Man (left). Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. return as Captain America and Iron Man in The Avengers (top right). Scarlett Johansson as The Avengers' Black Widow (bottom right).

Next up to the plate in the summer blockbuster season is The Amazing Spider-Man on July 4. Leaving aside the matter of the short period of time since the first Spider-Man screen outing (2002) and the relative age disparity of its lead to the character her plays (28-year-old Andrew Garfield portraying high schooler Peter Parker), things are genuinely looking promising for Spidey's contentious reboot. After all, Garfield's intensely likeable – even in The Social Network – and the absurdly cute Emma Stone is playing Gwen Stacy, Peter's love interest. Rhys Ifans brings Spidey adversary Dr. Curt Connors / The Lizard to life as only everyone's favourite Welshman can, and Martin Sheen is Uncle Ben this time around. That means that President Bartlett will be the one to tell Peter that, "With great power comes great responsibility" – and if he can't sell it, no one can.

But it's July 20 that's the date all movie fans have tattooed onto the underside of their eyelids. That's when Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy concludes with The Dark Knight Rises, featuring Tom Hardy's Bane, Anne Hathaway's Catwoman, and of course returning stars Christian Bale, Gary Oldman et al. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's listed as policeman John Blake, Marion Cottillard's down as "Miranda Tate" – but as it's a Chris Nolan film that could be a cunning bluff to hide a deeper secret or the whole truth of the matter, so speculate to your heart's content. We know that Bane will offer the Dark Knight a new kind of physically threatening opponent; we know that it's set about 8 years after the last, world-beating film. Beyond that? We're all in the dark – which is frankly just the way we like it. Still, die-hard Batman fans will want to check out the six-minute, Bane-filled prologue shown before 70mm IMAX screenings of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, just to keep them going until July.

Christian Bale returns as Batman (top left), Anne Hathaway takes on the role of Selina Kyle (bottom left) and Tom Hardy as Batman's latest adversary, Bane (right).

Considering the cinematic butchering Stallone and company gave Judge Dredd in 1995, it's a minor miracle that Danny Boyle's production company DNA plucked up the courage to produce Dredd, out September 21. So hats off – or rather helmet on – to star Karl Urban, director Pete Travis and screenwriter Alex Garland for stepping into the dangerous world of Mega-City One and profiling its resident one-person judge / jury / executioners. While there have been rumours of disagreements between Travis and Garland (also a producer) during the editing process, we're still optimistic. With such a fascinating world to explore and so many bad guys to be judged (and executed) you shouldn't give up hope on Britain's biggest and best comic book hero finally getting the film he deserves.

More in the issue Chris Hewitt talks to Thor, Chris Hemsworth, about The Avengers and Empire joins director Marc Webb in the editing suite for the world's first look at his Spider-Man reboot. Subscribe to Empire magazine today

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