The great new lot of movies coming out?

Cinema this year is strange to me. It seems that most of the movies that I am anticipating are the ‘franchise’ movies. There are so many sequels, trilogy conclusions, and movies being launched of TV series’ this year, that I can barely think of a NEW movie to see. Sure, there are a few things that pique my curiosity, but not enough to be like the old days (i.e. the days of little social life) where I knocked back 104 cinema trips in a year. Back then, if it was out, I’d seen it. Now I’d be lucky to go to 12 movies in a year. Of course, this year I’ve seen Hot Fuzz and absolutely loved it, but other than that, the list of the movies I’d like to see reads:
Live free or Die Hard, The Simpsons Movie, Harry Potter 5, Transformers, Sin City 2, Shrek the third, Oceans 13, Evan almighty, License to wed, I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry, Romulus my father, The Bourne Ultimatum, Pirates: at worlds end.
Only three movies in that are actually something new. So does this mean that once again, we are going through a cinematic era of ‘the franchise’, or is it just that my taste is getting really narrow? Worrying. This week I bought myself the latest ‘Empire’ but just didn’t see too many new movies getting good ratings. I used to aim to see new movies if they managed at 4 or 5 in empire, and that worked for me, but there just doesn’t seem to be much inspiration on the horizon.