Every year it seems we get warned some sort of epidemic or other is knocking at our door, about to decimate the world’s population, but it never actually happens and so most people have started to ignore it whenever people start telling us pigs and birds are going to lend us their flu, with devasting effects. However director Steven Soderbergh wants to put the willies up us about it with Contagion, a supposedly realistic horror about 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, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow star, all seemingly keen to ensure anyone who watches this never leaves the house again without wearing a mask. It hits UK cinemas on October 21st, but click below for the trailer.

Peter Lord has become a bit of a legend in the stop-motion animation world ever since his days with Morph. He also had a lot of success with his first movie, Chicken Run, but he hasn’t helmed anything since then. However he’ll be back in 2012 with The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists, based on two books from the classic Pirates! book series by Gideon Defoe. Now the first poster is here (see that above), along with two immensely fun trailers, one of which you can see below, while the other is over at The Guardian. 

Here’s the synopsis: ‘Hugh Grant stars in his first animated role as the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas. With a rag-tag crew at his side (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, and Ashley Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award.  It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London. Along the way they do battle with the pirate-hating Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a young Charles Darwin (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!’

It’ll be in cinemas next Spring, but you can enjoy the trailers now!

A fun new trailer for Aardman Animation’s upcoming Arthur Christmas has arrived, suggesting this is going to be very entertaining when it arrives in cinemas on November 11th. Featuring the voices of James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, and Ashley Jensen, this film is set on Christmas night and reveals the answer to every child’s question: ‘So how does Santa deliver all those presents in one night?’ James McAvoy leads the cast as Arthur, the good-natured but clumsy younger son of Santa, who ends up with an urgent mission that must be completed before Christmas morning dawns. Arthur loves everything to do with Christmas; indeed, he is the only one in his family still captivated by the magic of the holiday. Take a look at the new trailer below.

It certainly appears there’ll be plenty more Holmes-ian action fun this December when Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows arrives in cinemas. Now the first trailer for the film has arrived, and the full (pretty lengthy) official synopsis has also been released, which reads, ‘Robert Downey Jr. reprises his role as the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, and Jude Law returns as his formidable colleague, Dr. Watson, in “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.”

‘Sherlock Holmes has always been the smartest man in the room…until now. There is a new criminal mastermind at large—Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris)—and not only is he Holmes’ intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil, coupled with a complete lack of conscience, may actually give him an advantage over the renowned detective.

‘When the Crown Prince of Austria is found dead, the evidence, as construed by Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan), points to suicide. But Sherlock Holmes deduces that the prince has been the victim of murder—a murder that is only one piece of a larger and much more portentous puzzle, designed by one Professor Moriarty.

‘Mixing business with pleasure, Holmes tracks the clues to an underground gentlemen’s club, where he and his brother, Mycroft Holmes (Stephen Fry) are toasting Dr. Watson on his last night of bachelorhood. It is there that Holmes encounters Sim (Noomi Rapace), a Gypsy fortune teller, who sees more than she is telling and whose unwitting involvement in the prince’s murder makes her the killer’s next target. Holmes barely manages to save her life and, in return, she reluctantly agrees to help him.

‘The investigation becomes ever more dangerous as it leads Holmes, Watson and Sim across the continent, from England to France to Germany and finally to Switzerland. But the cunning Moriarty is always one step ahead as he spins a web of death and destruction—all part of a greater plan that, if he succeeds, will change the course of history.’

Guy Ritchie once more directs, and the film will be in cinemas on December 16th, but click below for the trailer.

A great new trailer for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, and while the first teaser was all about the look and feel of the movie, this one has loads more of the plot of the film, suggesting this is certainly going to be a spectacular all action adventure, with Steven Spielberg trying to prove motion-capture is a technology worth playing with. Jamie Bell is Tintin (under all the CG), the intrepid young reporter whose relentless pursuit of a good story thrusts him into a world of high adventure. Daniel Craig plays the nefarious Red Rackham, while the likes of Andy Serkis and Simon Pegg also star. It hits cinemas in October.

Oh dear God. Adam Sandler should barely be allowed a film career, let alone be permitted to make movies where he tries to strangle laughs out of dragging up and playing his his own sister. However that’s what he’s doing in Jack & Jill, where he plays Jack Sadelstein, a successful LA advertising executive with a beautiful wife and kids, who dreads one event each year – the Thanksgiving visit of his identical twin sister Jill (Adam Sandler). Jill’s neediness and passive-aggressiveness is maddening to Jack, turning his normally tranquil life upside down.

Doesn’t that sound hysterical? Umm, no, but watch the trailer below anyway. It’s set to reack UK cinemas in early January.