It's been over six weeks since Iron Man 3 kicked off the summer movie season and yet… the actual, official start of summer only begins for real this Friday, June 21. With almost all of the country's schools out of session and the 4th of July weekend just a couple weeks away and the heat and humidity starting to rise, moviegoing should be at a premium over the next few weeks. The terrific success of Man of Steel and This is the End this past weekend is a good sign that the box office is recovering well after being down for so much of the year leading up to May and this Friday, Man of Steel is joined by two very different, strong releases including the latest from the popular Disney•Pixar and the first true action movie from Brad Pitt in many years.

There's not much to say in terms of introductions this week except that we see the release of maybe one of the most important movies of the summer at least in terms of the continuation of the DC Entertainment Universe at Warner Bros. After the huge success of Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy, they really need to keep the flow going with Man of Steel (Warner Bros.), Zack Snyder's take on Superman, if they have any hopes of keeping up with Marvel Studios.

Everybody's going to be watching closely this weekend to see if the movie can open over $80 million or $90 million or even $100 million, which unfortunately means that the only other new movie this weekend, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's directorial debut, the R-rated Apocalypse comedy This is the End (Sony), may get lost in the shuffle. Either that or we'll have another strong weekend at the box office and who could ask for anything more than that?

This week's CHOSEN ONE is Morgan Neville's terrific music doc Morgan Neville's documentary 20 Feet from Stardom (Radius-TWC) that focuses on the back-up singers throughout the decades of rock 'n' roll and R 'n' B.

May came to a close with two smaller releases and June is likely to open with the same as everyone is basically waiting for Zack Snyder's Man of Steel to come out next week, so we're experiencing somewhat of a filler weekend where any new movie would be lucky to break out. It's somewhat surprising even to think that because for the second weekend in a row, we have a movie that reunites two big stars that previously had a hit together--actually last weekend, there were two reunions if you think about it--but there's also a much smaller lower profile high concept horror movie that seems to be finding a younger audience with its marketing that might surprise some people this weekend.

It's the last weekend of May and for whatever reason, someone thought it would be funny/ironic/weird/strange to have two movies by directors who repeatedly get a bad wrap from the fanboys open against each other, so that's why in this corner we have M. Night Shyamalan (Lady in the Water, The Last Airbender, The Happening) taking on Louis Leterrier (Clash of the Titans, The Incredible Hulk), although really this is going to be about whether one star (Will Smith) can take on an ensemble cast that includes Morgan Freeman, Woody Harrelson and others. We have a feeling we already know the winner in this match-up, but it's a slower weekend regardless compared to Memorial Day, and both movies will have to face much more high profile summer blockbusters.

This week's "Chosen One" is James Marsh's riveting political thriller Shadow Dancer (Magnolia), starring Andrea Riseborough and Clive Owen.

To say that June is often the oddball month of the summer may be an understatement, because it doesn't have any big holiday weekends like May or July, schools are slowly letting out--often different places in the country earlier than others. While there have been a few huge franchise hits that opened during the month and a couple that started there--The Hangover and The Fast and the Furious are two--having a $60 million opening would be enough to get you into the Top 10 June openers. There have also been an inordinate amount of major bombs, but we're not here to talk about box office just yet but just to let you know what's coming out, so if you're interested in that sort of thing, then read on.

Anyone who's been reading this column since its inception knows the significance of Memorial Day weekend as a holiday that not only represents for many the real kick-off of summer--a time for family fun and parades and picnics and such--but also a three-day weekend to go to the movies to see some of the big blockbuster sequels everyone's been waiting for. This weekend, we get two big sequels to two big movies that are certainly going to split some audiences although one is going to have a clear advantage with young males, as well as African-American and Latino audiences who've proven themselves able to bring big business to the box office. We also get our first new family movie in nearly two months, and we'll just have to see if there are enough people willing and able to pay to see two or three movies this weekend. While the showing for Star Trek Into Darkness is somewhat worrying for two more sequels, this has the potential to be one of the biggest Memorial Days in a very long time.

This week's CHOSEN ONE is Rama Burshtein's Fill the Void (Sony Pictures Classics), a coming-of-age story about a young Jewish girl who has to make a tough decision. Seriously, it's more exciting than Fast & Furious 6, I promise!

So far, this summer has been doing gangbusters with the Iron Man 3 kick-off and then last week, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby doing way better than most people ever expected while breaking Warner Bros’ ongoing "2nd weekend of May bombs" rut. And this week is going to continue the box office love with the release of the sequel to the 2009 summer blockbuster that redefined Star Trek for a whole new generation and made it cool again. This is only the third weekend of the summer but theaters should be packed once again and that’s even before the release of two more big sequels over Memorial Day weekend.

The second weekend of May has now become famous for the number of movies that outright bombed and no one knows this better than Warner Bros. who have had some really disastrous releases on the weekend including Poseidon, Speed Racer and last year's Dark Shadows starring Johnny Depp. The problem is that when so much focus is put on the first movie of the summer, opening just one week earlier, and you end up with such a huge opening like last weekend's Iron Man 3, there's really very little chance any movie can possibly overshadow it even in weekend 2.

Undaunted, Warner Bros. are giving it another go with The Great Gatbsy, which teams one of Australia's greatest auteurs with one of Hollywood's biggest stars for an adaptation of a classic piece of literature that's sold millions of books over the years. On the other hand, this may be a good weekend for counter-programming offered to African-American audiences, particularly women who won't have much interest in white people parties, but what Peeples has is that Tyler Perry attached his name as a presenter to help get it attention and Lionsgate would love this movie to have that kind of success with it.

The year is 2006, the month is July. It's Comic-Con in San Diego once again and Marvel Studios are there to present their first line-up of directors that plan on bringing Marvel Comics characters to the big screen. One of them is Jon Favreau, best known for directing Elf and as one half of the "Swingers” with Vince Vaughn. Then there's Louis Letterier who has been handed the reigns for The Incredible Hulk and some little guy with a funny accent, Edgar Wright? Oh, yeah, he directed Shaun of the Dead. Got it.

But let's get back to Jon Favreau who has been given the unenviable task of trying to make Iron Man cool for the masses. They've already cast Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, a move that fans of the comic books are fully behind, and yet the movie itself is two years away and no one knows what to expect.

Cut forward to May 2, 2008 and Iron Man opens to $102.2 million on its way to $318.6 million domestic and $582 million worldwide. The following Monday, Marvel shareholders are being given the gameplan for the next three movies leading up to The Avengers in May 2012. That movie sets a new domestic opening of $207.4 million, grosses $623.4 million domestically and $1.5 billion worldwide. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is officially as big as Star Wars

Now begins Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 2 with Iron Man 3.

(Plus this week's CHOSEN ONE is What Maisie Knew (Millennium Films), the new film from Scott McGehee and David Siegel.

This is it, the moment you've been waiting for!

Our annual look at the summer movie season and all of the exciting things being released by the studios between May and August. Those of you who have regularly been reading the Long Distance Box Offices probably have some idea of our thoughts on the summer already, but for those who've been waiting for the full-on overview, here's one of the most comprehensive looks at the summer you're going to read outside of Entertainment Weekly and we're focused almost solely on box office. We've separated everything into convenient categories though we haven't included every single movie because that would just be insanely ridiculous.