I'll be seeing most of that list in theaters. I'll avoid Mission Impossible because I just don't like Cruise and Wu (the best pure action director in the system today) isn't directing this one. Da Vinci Code is stupid so I'll be avoiding that. But other than that I'm a big comicbook nerd so X-Men and Supes are definitely on my list, the first Pirates movie was pretty awesome, always like Miami Vice and Michael Mann's look so that's in the list.
Sequels and rehashes have been the coin of Hollywood since it started, historically there have rarely been truly "new" ideas for movies. Back in the early days Hollywood mostly made movie versions of plays and sometimes turned around suprisingly quick remaked of movies (leading to some of Hollywood's all time great movies like Heston's Ben Hur which was a movie once before and a play twice before). Most of the big flops this year were the new movies with no backing in previous movies or other media. As for stars pontification if you ignore the entertainment media you'll never hear it. And there's nothing wrong with movie pontification just so long as they realize that movies heavy on message will make money more because of the message than the movie, and that blade cuts both ways as Passion proved in 2004.