Trailer: Mad Max: Fury Road

The web's been abuzz this morning with film writers/bloggers going gaga over the Comic-Con trailer for George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road -- I have to count myself in. Though there have been some massive announcements at the entertainment/pop culture convention over the weekend -- including a King Kong spin-off movie from Legendary, and confirmation of Tarantino's next film straight from the horse's mouth -- the long-gestating Miller reboot-cum-sequel of his classic Mad Max trilogy was definitely the one that grabbed my interest the most. Conceived as one long chase sequence, or as Miller has also described, "a western on wheels", the film won't be out until May 2015, but this blistering trailer should get you all jazzed up for it.... (more info on the film here)

Trailer: The Book of Eli

Is it just me or does Hollywood currently seem hellbent on feeding us with more and more images of the world's destruction? I can't recall the last time when there have been so many apocalypse/post-apocalypse-themed films in such a short period of time. We've had things like Children of Men, I Am Legend and Cloverfield in the last couple of years, all projecting none-too-optimistic outlooks on the future, and this year there's already been Terminator: Salvation and Knowing, and forthcoming are The Road and 2012, the latter already shaping up to be the ultimate word in end-of-the-world porn.

We can another one to the list now with Warner's The Book of Eli, due early in 2010, starring Denzel Washington as a lone warrior who holds the answer to humanity's survival. Interesting to see the return of the Hughes Brothers, who haven't directed anything since From Hell in 2001. While their films have always been kind of uneven, there's no questioning they're visually adept filmmakers, and the trailer for Eli looks like the movie will look pretty sweet if nothing else. The shots of Denzel looking extremely badass and throwing some killer moves add a bit to the anticipation too.

Trailer: The Road

The long-delayed adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road finally gets a trailer and it's a corker! I'm a sucker for post-apocalypse movies so your mileage might vary - but it does look visually stunning and like director John Hillcoat (The Proposition) spared no cost to preserve McCarthy's vision of the end of the world (though I can only presume as such, since for reasons I cannot explain, I have never been able to finish the book! One day...). The film stars Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron and Michael K. Williams (Omar from The Wire), and currently has a US release date of October 16, which puts it comfortably in the running for next year's Oscars.