After first hearing about 50/50, I initially thought that it would be too similar a film to Judd Apatow’s Funny People to stand as its own film, especially given that Seth Rogen stars in both.

But when the first trailer arrived back in May, it was immediately apparent how different the films would be, and in my eyes, 50/50 looks to be even better than Apatow’s film, and could succeed where the earlier film fell short.

In case you’ve missed them, we also got a nice first poster for the film last month, followed up with some great images from it for its promotion at the Toronto International Film Festival. Now, courtesy of Yahoo, we can enjoy a brilliant second trailer to whet our appetites. Unfortunately, this is nicely timed for the US audience, with its release there on 30th September. But for us in the UK, we’ve got to wait until 6th January for it to come out.

50/50 is,

“A comedic account of a 27-year-old guy’s cancer diagnosis, and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease.”

Led by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is supported by Rogen, this is definitely a film to look forward to at the start of next year, and I think it will really set the bar for the comedy dramas of 2012. The film also stars Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) as Gordon-Levitt’s therapist, Bryce Dallas Howard (Terminator Salvation) as his girlfriend, Anjelica Huston (The Royal Tenenbaums) as his mother, and Philip Baker Hall (Bruce Almighty) as a fellow chemo patient.

Will Reiser looks set to make an impressive screenwriting debut with 50/50, which is loosely based upon events in his own life. On top of all of the brilliant cast, I’m really looking forward to seeing Jonathon Levine’s follow-up to his 2008 film, The Wackness. It was a film that went fairly unnoticed to a lot of people, not making its budget back at the box office, but it was a fantastic film that I highly recommend you search out if you’ve not seen it already. His direction in that film was so good, and from the looks of what we’ve seen for 50/50, he’s not missed a beat in the past few years. Without further ado, here’s the great new trailer. Enjoy.

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icQRI7JlmuY’]