The box office dictates what movies come to theaters, but as time goes on it just seems that some quality control might be in order. Just because a movie makes a small planet made of money doesn't exactly mean that we as viewers want to see more. Sure, a lot of people saw What Happens in Vegas; but for the love of God, Hollywood spare us anymore Ashton/Cameron movies please. Although we've already passed the halfway point of 2008 and seen the release of movies like Step Up 2, Semi-Pro, and 10,000 BC, our troubles of flimsy movies are hardly over. Here are a few films that are coming out in the next six months that no one really asked to see:

Meet Dave (July 11)
Let's get this question out of the way: does anyone actually like Eddie Murphy anymore? It seems like every year a new Eddie Murphy comedy comes out, and every year everyone seems to forget that the comedies starring Eddie Murphy released in this decade were: The Nutty Professor 2, Dr. Dolittle 2, Showtime, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, I Spy, Daddy Day Care, The Haunted Mansion, and Norbit. Hopefully your average moviegoer has at least some basic common sense. Besides how hard can it be to realize that every one of Eddie Murphy's last eight comedies have been piles of hacky, horrible crap? Well, considering their collective yield of about $588,144,747, then it must be more difficult than we thought. It's as if producers saw how well Norbit performed and realized that people will watch just about anything as long as it had Eddie Murphy in it. We hope that "Meet Dave," which features an Eddie Murphy shaped robot piloted by a miniature Eddie Murphy, will be enough to set off the world's bad movie alarm - mankind doesn't want to see Eddie Murphy sink any lower.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (August 1)
We're not saying that the first two Mummy installments weren't fun. Sure, they were overblown Indiana Jones knock-offs-but it's not everyday that you get to see a sandstorm swallow a bi-plane. The consensus towards these movies seems to be a collective "Eh" - if it tells you anything, we had to turn to Google to remember the name Rick O'Connell.

It has been seven years since The Mummy Returns, and The Mummy 3 comes packed with a new villain, a new leading lady, and a new director. Couple these changes with a reported $175 million price tag, and a director whose last project Stealth lost almost $99 million in the box office and things do not exactly look rosy for another mummy movie. The film's otherwise dull August 1 release date that puts it up against Kevin Costner's Swing Vote, and Uwe Boll's Far Cry, may actually be the Mummy 3's only saving grace. After all, National Treasure 2 did well despite nobody breaking down Jerry Bruckheimer's door clamoring for it. At least we don't have to worry about a sequel to The Scorpion King-wait, never mind.

Star Wars: Clone Wars (August 15)
Someone should tell George Lucas to stop giving us what he thinks his fans want and just give his fans what they want: more original trilogy era Star Wars. Really though George, it's not a bad idea, this whole TV series thing, but we're sad to say that nobody really likes the new trilogy. We want X-Wings, and Star Destroyers; hell, even Ewoks-- no more of this battle droids, and clone trooper nonsense. Besides, Lucasarts already created a successful animated TV series set during the Clone Wars, so scrapping that in order to do a fancier computer generated series then essentially releasing the pilot in theaters seems a bit dubious. You could at least have set this new movie and series in the twenty years between Episodes III and IV; that way viewers would at least feel like they are seeing something new rather than just Episode II.V. Star Wars: Clone Wars may very well be the first Star Wars film to be stomped in the box office, especially since it's premiering the same day as the frat pack freight train of Tropic Thunder.

Death Race (August 22)
Paul W. S. Anderson may actually be the king of making movies that nobody wants to see. After giving us Mortal Kombat, Soldier (a pseudo-sequel to Blade Runner), Resident Evil, and Alien vs. Predator-Anderson bestows on us a remake of Roger Corman's classic schlock Death Race 2000 with Jason "I will be in anything" Statham set to star. According to interviews with the director, Anderson will be giving us his own take on the death race lore. In his version, the race is a gritty reality TV show where violent inmates race for their freedom in cars that look like rejects from "Monster Garage." Listen; when your Death Race 2000 remake starts to sounds like a cheap knock-off of The Condemned then you have a real problem on your hands. The way in which Anderson is treating this movie is akin to making a version of "Wacky Races" where Dick Dastardly leaves Blubber Bear lying in the street trying to scoop his intestines back into his body.

It's hard to split hairs over quality when the source material has a scene where people mow down geriatrics in a nursing home with a car shaped like a lizard, but Anderson is basically taking a dumb, ridiculously fun movie and making it simply, well, dumb. Sometimes we wonder if Paul W. S. Anderson only gets work by being mistaken for Wes or Paul Thomas Anderson.

Disaster Movie (August 29)
All right seriously. Who sees these movies? Who sees the trailer for this series of movies and thinks to themselves "You know what I want to do with my $10? I want to torture my soul. I want to sit in a dark room and watch a movie that can barely scratch together 80 minutes worth of material and just hate my life the entire time." The fact that this series of movies does well hurts-these movies are wretched to the point that it almost makes me wish that motion pictures never existed. It is utter proof that capitalism does not work. Although we will admit that we look forward to the inevitable Spoof Movie that will simply be fifty minutes of a topless Carmen Electra fighting a bear.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua (September 26)
It's safe to say that no one wants to see a children's movie whose main idea derives from Paris Hilton's dog-except Paris Hilton, and maybe my mother.

Scanners (October 17)
Did you know that a Scanners remake has a slated October release date? Neither did we!

The Day the Earth Stood Still (December 12)
The original The Day the Earth Stood Still was a film mired with provocative thoughts on war, human nature, government, and violence-in short. It is ingenious social commentary and pretty sweet science fiction to boot. Now an updated version helmed by the director of Hellraiser: Inferno is set for a December release, and it will feature Keanu Reeves as Klaatu. Fantastic.

According to a MTV News interview, this new version focuses on the effects that humans have on the planet rather than the original's concentration on war and its effects on society. Now, we are fairly open to remakes, but the thought of changing The Day the Earth Stood Still from "Quit fighting or Gort will melt off your head" to "Hey guys, let's cut down on our carbon emissions" feels lame. The demand for remakes of 50s sci-fi must be at an all time low after the epic failure of The Invasion, and The Happening just goes to show that people aren't exactly into seeing the planet getting its revenge on us. But hey, the remake of The Thing worked-but then again that was twenty-five years ago and had a crawling head in it, so comparing the two might be a little unfair.

Movies slated for a 2009 release you may or may not care about (probably not): s.Darko (Donnie Darko 2), Dragonball, The Pink Panther Deux, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, Fast and Furious, and Atlas Shrugged.

Story by Kris King

Starpulse contributing writer