Thank Robert Downey Jr. for playing Tony Stark so superbly. Thank Michael Bay for blowing up a bunch of stuff when he made "Transformers." Thank Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale and Heath Ledger for making one of the best films of 2008.

Most of all, thank the legions of geeks who paid to see those movies in the theater (multiple times), bought the DVD the day it came out and then bought the special collector's edition with a replica Two Face coin (I admit I have the coin in my pocket right now. I just showed it to Blake.).

For what reason will you be thanking geeks like me? If you're a geek, you'll be thankful for the slew of "fanboy" movies that will be unleashed on the public in 2009. If you're not a geek, you'll be sarcastically thankful for the plague of "stupid nerd" movies terrorizing Hollywood in 2009.

But frankly, I don't care what you non-geeks (jocks, divas, anyone who has never had glasses or braces, etc.) think. It will be our renaissance. And you will bow to us! Well, at least at the box office.

Some of the most anticipated movies of 2009 include:

• "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"
• "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"
• "Terminator: Salvation"
• "G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra"
• "Warcraft" (based on the "World of Warcraft" video games)
• "The A-Team"
• "Watchmen"
• "Star Trek"

Did you see all those colons in the titles? Wowza! How will comic book stores survive when 99.9999% of their buying population is watching Ice Cube pitying fools as B.A. Baracus, and Gambit making his debut on the big screen, and Captain Kirk and Spock being young again, and Rorschach delivering his own brand of vigilante justice upon an alternate New York City set in 1987...at least five times each?

I'm kidding, of course. The real problem will be what happens after 2009. If these geek-bait movies aren't up to par, then movie studios will abandon the franchises in years to come. Do you remember all the buildup before "Speed Racer" was released? It cost $120 million to make the film, but it grossed less than $19 million in its opening weekend, and put Speed and Trixie in their cinematic graves. If this happens to just a few films in 2009, several studios may shy away from anything with capes or dematerialization transporters.

Another problem is that "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man" raised the bar for every superhero movie that followed. This means that there are going to be lofty expectations for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and "Watchmen." Moviegoers may not expect an award-winner from either of the projects, but they will likely desire something better than the first three "X-Men" installments. If "Watchmen" goes the way of "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" or "The Spirit," a movie about another graphic novel may be a hard sell in the future.

Soak it in, fellow geeks. Sure, "The Avengers" may come in 2011, but there could be murky waters ahead in Hollywood.