After a less than sizzling summer at the box office, studios hope for a rebound as audiences return from vacations and settle back into seats at movie theaters.

Holiday season extravaganzas like King Kong Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Aeon Flux and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are just around the corner. Many of these big films won't be released until around Thanksgiving or Christmas, but they are already creating buzz..

Also creating a buzz are some serious dramas (and potential Oscar nominees) like Ang Lee's gay cowboy drama Brokeback Mountain, Stephen Gaghan's big oil drama Syriana, Rob Marshall's adaptation of Memoirs of a Geisha, Steven Spielberg's account of the tragic 1972 Olympics (Munich) and the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line.

It wouldn't be fall without history lessons. Terrence Malick recounts the arrival of the first white settlers in America with The New World, while George Clooney recalls the communist witch hunts of the McCarthy era in Good Night, and Good Luck.

Autumn also seems to be the ideal time for moviemakers to harvest literary classics like Dickens' Oliver Twist, and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Both are re-imagined this fall.

And how about this for a twist: a Broadway hit adapted from a hit movie will burst onto the big screen again in The Producers: The Movie Musical. Another hit Broadway musical, Rent, checks in in November.