A financial executive (Murphy) who can’t stop his career downspiral is invited into his daughter’s imaginary world, where solutions to his problems await.

Is Murphy’s real-world profession in the same state as his character’s here? Maybe it’s time to make like Adam Sandler and head back out on the stand-up circuit in order to revitalize your career. Either that, or pull a Johnny Gill and disappear from the industry completely.

Rated PG for some mild language and brief questionable behavior.

Director: Karey Kirkpatrick
Stars: Eddie Murphy, Thomas Haden Church
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: 12 June 2009 (USA), 24 July 2009 (Italy), 31 July 2009 (UK), 21 August 2009 (Mexico)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

Street dancer Thomas Uncles is from the wrong side of the tracks, but his bond with the beautiful Megan White might help the duo realize their dreams as the enter in the mother of all dance battles.

Little is known about the new Wayans Bros. comedy, but if that plot outline holds true, the brothers could be retreating back to White Chicks territory in order to put the uninspired Little Man behind them. (Remember when the “baby” hit his adoptive father with a frying pan?) I’m probably in the minority here, but I truly wish Keenen Ivory Wayans would get in more of a 90s mindset, when he wrote scripts like I’m Gonna Git You Sucka and Hollywood Shuffle. If that can’t happen, strive to create scenarios that as are funny as the best bits from the first two Scary Movies.

Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, and language.

Director: Damien Wayans
Stars: Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: 22 May 2009 (USA)
Genre: Action, Comedy

From the first scene the Star Trek universe as we knew it has changed forever. Kirk is now an angry wayward young man looking for trouble. A young Spock is tortured over his mixed heritage, the emotions he fights to control and the very different paths he has before him. He must choose between the Vulcan world which will never accept him as anything other than ‘half human’ and Starfleet Academy, worlds away from everything he has ever known. We meet Dr ‘Bones’ McCoy and a young linguist Uhura at the Academy and watch as a headstrong Kirk wreaks havoc on Starfleet’s rules and regulations. The fleet is called to arms as peril aims at the heart of the Federation and Kirk and Spock are irrevocably pulled together to save the galaxy – for the first time.

One look (okay maybe two) at the trailer and it’s safe to say this isn’t your grandfather’s Star Trek. With a Spock vs. Kirk fist fight, steamy sex scenes, Shaun of the Dead cracking jokes and is that Harold from Harold and Kumar (!?), this doesn’t even come close to being your older brother’s TNG. Early reports call it “phenomenal”. So, perhaps handing this tired franchise over to the young Mr. Abrams may have been just what it needed to live long and …

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence, and brief sexual content.

Director: J.J. Abrams
Stars: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: 8 May 2009 (USA)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Orphaned teens Andi (Roberts) and Bruce (Austin) are sent to live with their aunt, which is just fine with the kids until they meet a stray dog who needs their help. Since their aunt is allergic to dogs, the siblings decide to turn a nearby abandoned house into a canine hostel. But can they kept their secret under wraps as more and more four-legged guests arrive?

Visual effects whiz Thor Freudenthal was set to make his directorial debut on They Came from Upstairs, but he hopped on Dogs, a project I’m hearing will have some dark shading and a PG rating. Cute kids here, an even cuter adult cast (Kudrow plays the allergic aunt) … could Emma Roberts, whose Wild Child disappeared from the 2008/2009 calendar, have her first actual-real box-office hit?

Rated PG for brief mild thematic elements, language and some crude humor.

Director: Thor Freudenthal
Stars: Emma Roberts, Jake T. Austin, Lisa Kudrow, Don Cheadle, Johnny Simmons
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: 16 January 2009 (USA)