Summer movie preview

‘Barbie,’ ‘The Flash,’ ‘Fast X’ zooming into theaters

By L indsey Bahr The Associated Press

The stakes are always high in the summer movie season.

But even in a schedule that has heavyweights like Indiana Jones, Ariel, Ethan Hunt and Dominic Toretto vying for box office supremacy, the biggest, funniest showdown is happening July 21. On that fateful Friday, cinephiles will be faced with a difficult choice: Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” or Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie”?

The “Barbieheimer” showdown is, naturally, a bit silly. First, it’s entirely possible to see two new movies in one weekend. Second, while opening weekends are important, they’re also not everything. In 2008, “The Dark Knight” debuted on the same weekend as “Mamma Mia!” and both went on to be major successes.

The summer movie season always begins before actual summer. This year it kicks off on Friday with the release of Disney and Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and runs through Labor Day. Since “Jaws,” the summer season has been the most important for the moviemaking industry and typically accounts for around 40% of a year’s domestic box office, according to data from Comscore. Pre-pandemic, that usually meant more than $4 billion in ticket sales. Last year hit $3.4 billion.

But the industry is feeling optimistic. Last summer, only 22 films released on over 2,000 screens. This year there are 42, the same as in 2019, spanning every genre. And, it seems, every studio has re-prioritized theatrical releases over direct-to-streaming.

June brings “Indiana Jones 5,” a “Spider-Verse” sequel, “The Flash” a new Pixar pic and one film many have already called the best of the year (“Past Lives”).

And things get really exciting in July with the highly anticipated debuts of “Oppenheimer,” “Mission: Impossible 7,” “Barbie,” while August promises a new take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and introduces a new DC superhero, Blue Beetle.

Here’s a month-by-month sampling of this summer’s new movies:

• Friday

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” (Disney/Marvel, theaters): Nine years after the non-comic obsessed world was introduced to Peter Quill, Rocket, Groot and the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy, the misfits are closing out the trilogy and saying goodbye to director James Gunn, who is now leading rival DC.

• May 12

“Book Club: The Next Chapter” (Focus Features, theaters): Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen travel to Italy to celebrate an engagement.

“The Mother” (Netflix, streaming): Jennifer Lopez is an assassin and a mother in this action pic timed to Mother’s Day.

“Love Again” (Sony, theaters): Priyanka Chopra Jonas plays a woman mourning the death of her boyfriend who texts his old number not knowing it belongs to someone new (Sam Heughan). Celine Dion (and her music) co-star in this romantic drama.

“STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie” (AppleTV+): Davis Guggenheim helps Michael J. Fox tell his story, from his rise in Hollywood to his Parkinson’s diagnosis and beyond.

• May 19

“Fast X” (Universal, theaters): In the 10th installment of the Fast franchise, Jason Momoa joins as the vengeful son of a slain drug lord intent to take out Vin Diesel’s Dom.

“White Men Can’t Jump” (20th Century Studios, streaming on Hulu): Sinqua

Walls and Jack Harlow co-star in this remake of the 1992 film, co-written by Kenya Barris and featuring the late Lance Reddick.

“Master Gardener” (Magnolia, theaters): Joel Edgerton is a horticulturist in this Paul Schrader drama, co-starring Sigourney Weaver as a wealthy dowager.

• May 26

“The Little Mermaid” (Disney, theaters): Halle Bailey plays Ariel in this technically ambitious live-action remake of a recent Disney classic directed by Rob Marshall (“Chicago”) and co-starring Melissa McCarthy as Ursula.

“You Hurt My Feelings” (A24, theaters): Nicole Holofcener takes a nuanced and funny look at a white lie that unsettles the marriage between a New York City writer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and a therapist (Tobias Menzies).

“About My Father” (Lionsgate, theaters): Stand-up comic Sebastian Maniscalco co-wrote this culture clash movie in which he takes his Italian-American father (Robert De Niro) on a vacation with his wife’s WASPy family.

“Victim/Suspect” (Netflix, on May 23): This documentary explores how law enforcement sometimes indicts victims of sexual assault instead of helping.

• June 2

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (Sony, theaters): Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is back, but with things not going so well in Brooklyn, he opts to visit the multiverse with his old pal Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), where he encounters the Spider-Society.

“The Boogeyman” (20th Century Studios, theaters): “It’s the thing that comes for your kids when you’re not paying attention,” David Dastmalchian explains to Chris Messina in this Stephen King adaptation.

“Past Lives” (A24, theaters): Already being hailed as one of the best of the year after its Sundance debut, Celine Song’s