After kicking off with The Hunger Games last Thursday, passing to Avengers Assemble last Friday, being tackled by Men in Black 3 on Saturday and being caught offside by Snow White and the Huntsman (I’ve gone for football today. Oh yeah.), we now have a chance to score with Prometheus, and it’s time for part five of Twelve for 2012.  Kicking off the second week of the feature, it’s the one with the space jockey, the bloody massive spaceship and the mutated crew. Part five, Prometheus!

THE GOOD STUFF

Well, back in part three (Men in Black 3) I mentioned that there’s a few sequels/prequels on the list that I haven’t seen the predecessors to, and this is one of them. Nope, I haven’t seen Alien, Aliens, or Alien 3. But despite that, the trailers for Prometheus are good. Really, really good. Promising sci-fi horror (the best type of horror, in my geeky opinion), explosions (you’ve gotta have explosions) and cool-looking aliens, Prometheus has shot up my list of must-watch movies this year to number three (Behind Avengers and part eight).

It’s got a pretty good cast: Noomi Rapace (I’m told she was in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Well, I didn’t see her in it.) Micheal Fassbender, Charlize Theron and Idris Elba, among others. And the big names will bring in MONEY. Lots of it.

Ridley Scott’s directing! Any famous director who’s directing a high-profile movie will add value to the movie, and in Scott’s case, that’s a hell of a lot of value, considering that he directed the first Alien, and this is a prequel to Alien. This means more MONEY for Prometheus.

It’s bringing sci-fi horror back into the mainstream market again. And that means three demographics will go for it: horror fans, sci-fi fans, and the regular cinema-goer who has time and money on their hands. Again, this means more MONEY. Why am I always talking about MONEY?

THE BAD STUFF

Prometheus’ release dates of June 1 and June 8 aren’t very good. Whilst it’s protected from the titans of May and July, the release dates fall at the time Euro 2012 starts. Which means many people across the world will be glued to their TVs (me included) watching the football while Prometheus is in the cinema.

If you look at the box office gross for the Alien movies, it’s all around $150 million. While the marketing of the present day will bring in more money than that for Prometheus, will it make that much more, with Ridley Scott insisting that it’s not a prequel to Alien, therefore cutting the links to the now wildly popular movie? Own goal, Mr Scott, own goal. (What?)

It might end up rated 15 (that’s R for US readers) which cuts off a large portion of the mass market (i.e teenagers), therefore damaging the amount of MONEY that Prometheus will make. After all, watching the trailer, it’d be a miracle if it ended up rated 12/PG-13. Crap, that means I won’t be able to see it until the DVD release! NO!!!

Will it be good? Yes, yes it will. It’ll be really good. Excuse my optimism, but this could be one of the best movies of the year.

How much money will it make? It’s quite a niche movie, so about $400 million. Quite a lot, but not that much. Enough for a sequel, though.

Next time: I see how amazing The Amazing Spider-Man is actually going to be.