Summer releases: sci-fi blockbusters

Coming soon to a multiplex near you: H G Wells, Douglas Adams and Darth Vader

Summer-release season is about to begin in the US, which usually translates into a spate of PG-rated family movies and wannabe blockbusters.

Sci-fi/fantasy films tend to be good bets for most studios at this time, and this year is no exception. Given the ever-reducing gap time between a film's release in the US and its distribution in India, you might want to start marking your calendars for these movies well in advance:

War of the Worlds

Tom Cruise;
Directed by
Steven Spielberg

This is beyond doubt the film to beat at the box office this year. Working with the biggest budget in movie history "" a reported $200 million "" Spielberg and Cruise have completed this modernised version of H G Wells's classic novel.

Purists will object, but at risk of sounding lowbrow we think the Wells novel has dated badly and could do with a makeover. Go Cruise!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell

Rabid fans will scream themselves hoarse protesting that it can't be done, but Douglas Adams' cult phenomenon is finally on its way to a galaxy near you.

What should soothe many nerves is that the screenplay for this film was written by the late author himself. Cameos by veterans like John Malkovich and Stephen Fry will add respectability.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman

George Lucas's grand vision of a multi-part "space opera", which began in the early 1970s, will likely come to a close this year (it remains unclear whether Lucas will ever film Episodes VII, VIII and IX, which was part of his original design).

Revenge of the Sith is the last of the three prequels to the original Star Wars trilogy, filmed between 1976 and 1982.

Its two predecessors "" The Phantom Menace (1999) and Attack of the Clones (2002) "" got mixed (or "Lukewarm", as one wag suggested) reviews but this instalment is likely to be the most sombre of all the Star Wars films, since it deals with the metamorphosis of the heroic Anakin Skywalker into the dark lord Darth Vader.

Fans and geeks in the US have already begun their vigil outside ticket counters.