Continuing this week's discussion theme, we're wrapping up the 2012 summer movie season with a look back and now a glance forward. With The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and Battleship behind us, we now anticipate the big blockbusters of 2013, particularly Iron Man 3, Man of Steel and Pacific Rim.

In place of this year's remake of a Paul Verhoeven film, Total Recall, we'll get another remake of a Paul Verhoeven film, RoboCop. Filling the prequel slot that Prometheus held this year will be Pixar's Monsters Inc. flashback, Monsters University. And while the recent apocalyptic comedy Seeking a Friend for the End of the World wasn't a smash hit, maybe next summer's End of the World will fare better. Will Smith's obligatory appearance next year is not a sequel, like this summer's Men in Black 3, but an original sci-fi effort directed by M. Night Shyamalan titled After Earth.

And in addition to the return of Tony Stark, you'll find plenty of other sequels, such as The Smurfs 2, The Hangover III and Fast and Furious 6. Also, new Star Trek, Wolverine, 300, RED, Percy Jackson, Despicable Me, Grown Ups and Kick-Ass. Hopeful franchise starters include Disney's The Lone Ranger, the young-adult-series adaptation The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones and the animated films Epic and Turbo. Maybe World War Z will be better than it's seeming, too.

Finally, you'll be able to relieve any frustrations you have with whoever's in the White House next year by seeing it destroyed in 3D in the rerelease of Roland Emmerich's Independence Day or seeing it simply hijacked in Roland Emmerich's White House Down.

I'd say my biggest hopes for next summer, none of which I hope fall into that year's "biggest disappointment" discussion, are with the Superman reboot, The Wolverine and RoboCop, the last mainly because I don't want Jose Padilha to fail. I'm probably most anticipating being surprised, though, by great films we don't even really know about yet, whether they'll show their heads at festivals beforehand or just be something unexpected.









Which summer 2013 movie are you most looking forward to? Here are some responses we've already received via Twitter:

@ thefilmcynic Man of Steel and Star Trek. — Andrew Davies (@dashielldavies) August 24, 2012

@ thefilmcynic Man of Steel and Elysium — G. Vlahakis (@GVLOW) August 24, 2012

@ thefilmcynic It's a toss up between Pacific Rim and World War Z — Cody Beckman (@CBeckman25) August 24, 2012

@ thefilmcynic Iron Man 3 and Pacific Rim. — Dominic (@Count3D) August 24, 2012

@ thefilmcynic Summer 2013, off the top of my head, Iron Man 3, I'm really looking forward to what Shane Black does with it. — Kira Sostre (@KiraSostre) August 24, 2012

Follow Christopher Campbell on Twitter (@thefilmcynic) to join the next discussion.