<img title="Image: http://www.myvivvo.com/thumbnail.php?file=art.summer.movies_315437101.jpg&amp;size=article_medium" src="http://www.myvivvo.com/thumbnail.php?file=art.summer.movies_315437101.jpg&amp;size=article_medium" alt="Here they come here come summer movies">
										
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								<span>Studio executives hope they've trained their audience well as the season of summer blockbusters arrives.<br><br>From
 May through mid-August, Hollywood will bank on the idea that there is 
at least one movie every week -- and sometimes two -- that you simply 
must see.<br><br>Summer features such box-office staples as Will Smith, 
Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Jack Black, and brings back beloved 
characters such as Indiana Jones, Batman, Speed Racer, Carrie and her 
"Sex and the City" gal pals, the "Narnia" kids, the Incredible Hulk and 
two very different agent couples: paranormal troupers Mulder and Scully 
and comic spies Maxwell Smart and Agent 99.<br><br>A look at the lineup:<br><br>MAY
 2: Heavy hitters like "Spider-Man" and "Superman" are established 
big-screen figures, but the comic-book world has a deep bench.<br><br>Robert
 Downey Jr. takes the lead in "Iron Man," playing a wealthy inventor who
 lacks superpowers but does have a nifty high-tech suit of armor that 
really leaves an impression when he gives villains a knuckle sandwich.<br><br><br>Gwyneth
 Paltrow, Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges co-star in the tale based on 
the Marvel Comics hero, a man with a subversive sense of humor who 
starts off as "not the most likable fellow," said director Jon Favreau.<br><br>With
 "Iron Man" less familiar to audiences than Supe or Spidey, it took an 
actor of Downey's status to ease some worries Favreau had.<br><br>"My 
biggest concern was that it would slide into some B-hero wheeled out by 
Marvel, that this movie would be a poor man's 'Spider-Man,' " Favreau 
said. "Hiring Robert, the challenge shifted from whether it was going to
 be good or bad to how far we were going to push things and bend the 
genre."<br><br>MAY 9: Andy and Larry Wachowski turned virtual reality on
 its head with "The Matrix." Now they follow their R-rated franchise 
with the family-friendly adventure "Speed Racer," an adaptation of the 
animated show starring Emile Hirsch as the kid roaring along the 
roadways, Christina Ricci as his helicopter-flying girlfriend and 
Matthew Fox as mystery man Racer X. The film will also be released in 
IMAX.<br><br>A fan of "Speed Racer" growing up, Hirsch said he wanted in
 as soon as he heard the Wachowski brothers were writing and directing.<br><br>"Seeing
 'The Matrix' for the first time when I was 13 to this day is one of my 
most memorable experiences ever in a movie theater," Hirsch said. "I 
already loved the show, and for guys of that kind of caliber to get 
involved with it could only be something special."<br><br>MAY 16: Things
 sure can change in 1,300 years, as Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy 
Pevensie learn when they go over the rainbow again in "The Chronicles of
 Narnia: Prince Caspian," the second installment in the fantasy 
franchise based on C.S. Lewis' books.<br><br>Only a short time has 
passed for the siblings in England, but centuries have gone by in 
Narnia, which now is under the bootheel of the tyrannical Telmarines and
 mean King Miraz. The Pevensies encounter a new ally -- Caspian (Ben 
Barnes), the rightful heir to Narnia's throne -- and are reacquainted 
with old buddy Aslan the lion, again voiced by Liam Neeson.<br><br>The 
three years since the first movie, "The Lion, the Witch and the 
Wardrobe," have resulted in huge digital advancements in how director 
Andrew Adamson could depict computer-generated creatures such as Aslan.<br><br>"It's
 little things like when Lucy first sees him this time, she runs up and 
gives him a hug. ... It's a great image to see a little girl hug a 
lion," Adamson said. "And there's a great shot in this film where Aslan 
actually tackles someone off a horse and rolls around on the ground with
 them. The level of interactivity makes it so much more real."<br><br>MAY 22: Cue the Indy fanfare. Henry Jones Jr. is cracking his whip again.<br><br>"Indiana
 Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" reunites the dream team of 
Harrison Ford as the archaeologist-adventurer, director Steven Spielberg
 and creator-producer George Lucas.<br><br>It's been 19 years since the 
last movie, and the fourth film hurtles the aging Indy from his 
Nazi-fighting days of the 1930s to the Cold War era of the '50s, with 
Cate Blanchett as a Soviet operative and Karen Allen returning as Marion
 Ravenwood, his love interest from 1981's "Raiders of the Ark."<br><br>Unlike
 film franchises that crank up the action and effects with each sequel, 
Spielberg, Lucas and Ford are offering an old-school Indy.<br><br>"We 
did everything exactly the way we did it before, so if you expect F-14s 
flying into freeways, it ain't gonna happen," Lucas said. "If you expect
 this to suddenly have bells and whistles and have 10 times more 
whatever than the first ones, it's not. It's just like a continuation. 
It's like sitting down on a cozy old sofa that you've had for 20 years 
and having the same experience."<br><br>What sort of toll did the action
 take on 65-year-old Ford, who sustained knee and back injuries on some 
of the earlier "Indiana Jones" movies?<br><br>"I broke a fingernail," Ford said. "I walked away with a hangnail."<br><br>As
 for the big question fans have posed -- is co-star Shia LaBeouf the 
love child of Indy and Marion? -- neither Ford nor Lucas will say.<br><br>"I
 can't say that. I'm not allowed. Steven would kill me. You'll have to 
get that out of Steven," Lucas said. "If you get it out of him, then it 
must be true." <br><br>JUNE 13: When we last saw Marvel Comics' big 
angry green guy, he was hopping around in the desert in Ang Lee's 
"Hulk," a critical and commercial disappointment. <br><br>The Marvel 
gang went back to the drawing board for "The Incredible Hulk," starring 
Edward Norton in a new take that the filmmakers say will channel both 
the comic books and the 1970s and '80s TV show starring Bill Bixby.<br><br>The
 movie wastes no time explaining how Norton's Bruce Banner was 
transformed into a man who mutates into the Hulk when angered, said 
producer Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios' head of production. The story 
hints at what happened to him then jumps into the action, he said.<br><br>"This
 is not an origin story," Feige said. "We are assuming everyone buying a
 ticket will know Bruce Banner is a scientist on the run who grows into a
 green hulk 9 feet tall. That's all people need to know. So the 
adventure is off and running right from the beginning."<br><br>JULY 18: 
Batman is back with "The Dark Knight," reuniting star Christian Bale 
with director Christopher Nolan and pitting the soul-searching 
crimefighter against his greatest enemy, the Joker, played by the late 
Heath Ledger in his next-to-last role. The film will also be released in
 IMAX, and Nolan filmed some scenes in the large-form technology.<br><br>With
 great buzz on Ledger's frantic performance and his demonic makeup, the 
Joker is the corrupted flip-side of Batman, who lives by a strict code 
despite raging inner turmoil.<br><br>"It's a fine line, something which 
we kind of toy with in the story, of this fine line, essentially both 
being freaks to most people, both being idealists," Bale said. "The 
Joker trying to show the hypocrisy of society and trying to show Batman 
that his way just ultimately can't work. These rules that he places on 
himself are just a joke."</span>
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