MARY Poppins, Lara Croft and Han Solo are among the famous characters due to return to the big screen in 2018.
It's been more than 50 years since Julie Andrews dazzled movie-goers as Mary Poppins – now Emily Blunt picks up the famous carpet bag in Mary Poppins Returns, due for release in December.
In the sequel, Jane and Michael Banks (Emily Mortimer and Ben Whishaw) are grown up, while Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, Meryl Streep, Julie Walters and Colin Firth all join the cast.
PlayStation heroine Lara Croft will swing back into cinemas in March in the shape of Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander, who takes over the role from Angelina Jolie.
Tomb Raider will trace Lara as she searches for her adventurer father's last-known destination before he disappeared – a tomb on a mythical Japanese island.
Meanwhile, Star Wars spin-off Solo will tell the origin story of anarchic pilot Han Solo, played by Hail, Caesar!'s Alden Ehrenreich. He will be joined in a galaxy far, far away by Game Of Thrones star Emilia Clarke, Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Atlanta's Donald Glover.
Elsewhere, there will be comic book sequels in the form of Deadpool 2, The Incredibles 2, Ant-Man and The Wasp, X-Men: Dark Phoenix and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as a return to Jurassic World in Fallen Kingdom, a reunion with Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades Freed and another visit to the Fantastic Beasts in The Crimes Of Grindelwald.
One of the most eagerly anticipated comic book films of the year is Black Panther, released on February 12, starring Chadwick Boseman in the title role as Marvel's first black superhero.
The Get On Up star leads a cast that includes Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong'o, Michael B Jordan, Forest Whitaker, Get Out's Daniel Kaluuya and Sterling K Brown.
Jordan will also be seen reprising his role of Adonis Johnson in Creed II, a sequel to the Rocky spin-off which also features Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa.
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again will arrive in cinemas in July, 10 years after the original blockbuster musical was released. The new film will be a prequel centring on Meryl Streep's character when she was younger, now played by Lily James.
Stars Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Julie Walters, Amanda Seyfried and Christine Baranski are all expected to return, joined by newcomers Jeremy Irvine, Hugh Skinner and even Cher.
It promises to be a good year for female protagonists in 2018, with Sally Hawkins leading Britain's Oscar hopes in Guillermo Del Toro's dreamy sci-fi love story The Shape Of Water, due out in February.
She is likely to be in contention with Irish star Saoirse Ronan, who is tipped for nominations for her role in Lady Bird (the directorial debut of Greta Gerwig), while Margot Robbie is also generating a buzz for her role as disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding in I,Tonya.
The all-female Ocean's Eleven sequel Ocean's 8 is due out in June. Starring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna, Sarah Paulson and Helen Bonham Carter, the heist film centres on a plot to steal jewellery from the Met Gala.
Rihanna will not be the only singer hoping to make a splash at the box office: Stefani Germanotta – aka Lady Gaga – steps into the shoes of Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand for a new version of 1937 classic A Star Is Born, the directorial debut of Bradley Cooper.
The new year will also bring new projects from high-profile directors, including Wes Anderson, Terry Gilliam, Steven Spielberg and Damien Chazelle.
The latter will follow up his huge success with La La Land with First Man, due out in November. Timed to anticipate the 50th anniversary of the moon landings, it stars Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong in a re-telling of America's 'space race'.
Anderson will return with the stop-motion animated effort Isle Of Dogs in March, while Gilliam will hopefully finally unveil his long-delayed The Man Who Killed Don Quixote in the autumn.
Spielberg will release Ready Player One this year, his adaptation of Ernest Cline's sci-fi scavenger-hunt novel, which imagines an elaborate virtual-reality gaming environment.
There will also be a new project from 12 Years A Slave director Steve McQueen, who takes on Widows. Based on a British TV mini-series from the 1980s, this heist thriller centres on four women (including Viola Davis and Michelle Rodriguez) who team up to cash in on the failed caper of their late husbands.
