SPOTLIGHT ON "EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE" WITH SANDRA BULLOCK & TOM HANKS, AND "MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL" WITH TOM CRUISE

 Check out HOLLYWOOD SPY's spotlight on two of the upcoming blockbusters which will hit cinemas at the end of December, premiering this festive season.

 GHOST PROTOCOL

If you want your festive season spiced up with some action, you might want to check out MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL. The new film in the series which has grossed $2 billion dollars worldwide, will feature locations in Dubai, Moscow, Prague and Vancouver, and will have the IMF shut down when it's implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization's name. The cast of this

$140 million worth movie is lead by Tom Cruise, but since there's an idea of him passing the lead role in the franchise onto someone else in the future, there's Jeremy Renner too. They are joined by Simon Pegg, Josh Holloway and Tom Wilkinson. The team also features some Academy Award winners such as director of photography Robert Elswit ("There Will Be Blood"), editor Paul Hirsch ("Star Wars") and visual effects producer Tom Peitzman ("Mission: Impossible III", "Alice in Wonderland"). Brad Bird, the director of the film, is also an Oscar winner as the creator of famous animated films THE INCREDIBLES and RATATOUILLE.

EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE

One of the films which will try to touch you deeply when you are the most vulnerable (which means exactly at Christmas) is

powerful drama with a long title EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE. Directed by famous genius and amazing Oscar winner Stephen Daldry (THE HOURS, THE READER, BILLY ELLIOT), this movie is actually an adaptation of the bestselling book by Jonathan Safran Foer which follows eleven-year-old Oskar Schell, an exceptional child: amateur inventor, Francophile, pacifist. After finding a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, he embarks on an exceptional journey, an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. As Oskar roams the city, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity, who are all survivors in their own ways. Ultimately, Oskar's journey ends where it began, but with the solace of that most human experience: love. The cast of the film is lead by Sandra Bullock (looks like a powerful role), Tom Hanks and little Thomas Horn, beside John Goodman, James Gandolfini and Viola Davis.

When it comes to Tom Cruise, he has two films planned for the future: the remake of ROCK OF AGES in which he will star next to Catherine Zeta Jones, and huge sf epic HORIZONS. Jeremy Renner is, as you know, Hawkeye in THE AVENGERS and he is taking another franchise from an older star in THE BOURNE LEGACY. Sandra Bullock has a lot of projects ahead of her,  the biggest probably being sf epic GRAVITY with George Clooney.