LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Robert Downey Jr. is donning his Iron Man suit one more time, Captain Kirk is back on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, and the Hangover crew are headed for another bout of mayhem and bad decisions.
A summer of familiar faces will be on offer at the Hollywood box office, with an astounding 17 sequels between May 1 and the U.S. Labor Day weekend on September 2.
With the four-month summer movie season generating some 40 percent of the annual North American box office, and a 5 percent slump in summer ticket sales in 2012, the pressure is on to churn out hits.
Seven of the top 10 grossing films for the whole of 2012 were sequels. In 2011, it was nine. With 17 in contention this summer alone, Hollywood studios are relying on a proven fan base to help the slew of high-profile franchises hit their mark.
"You have blockbuster after blockbuster week after week," Exhibitor Relations Co's senior box office analyst Jeff Bock told Reuters. "It's like planes coming in at an airport landing strip, one after another."
If all goes well, 2013 might be the biggest domestic summer box office on record, topping US$4.5 billion, Bock said. Last year's summer take was just US$4.29 billion, down from the record US$4.4 billion for 2011.
"Summer for the studios is like Christmas for retailers," Entertainment Weekly senior writer Anthony Breznican told Reuters. "It's when studios make the lion's share of sales for the year. It's where they place their biggest bets and hope to make the most return."
The month of May alone will see four sequels - Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, The Hangover 3 and Fast & Furious 6.
"Those are characters or franchises audiences have loved for so long," said Fandango's chief correspondent, Dave Karger. "Viewers know what they're in for with these movies."
WILL SUPERHEROES MESS UP?
Zachary Quinto, who reprises his role as Spock in Paramount's Star Trek Into Darkness, noted that it has been four years since movie audiences have seen the characters from the beloved sci-fi series.
"There's more action, more destinations, more set pieces and the stakes are higher," Quinto told Reuters of the film. "We're up against an adversary that requires us to splinter off and divide in order to conquer."
Elsewhere, films based on superheroes such as Man Of Steel and The Wolverine, and franchise continuations of action films like Red 2 and Universal's Kick-Ass 2, all look sound - on paper.
But even superheroes sometimes mess up. Although 2006's Superman Returns grossed US$200 million domestically, Breznican said, it had "no love" from fans, and was largely seen as a flop for Warner Bros.
June's Superman offering Man Of Steel has a whole new cast including Henry Cavill in the title role and filmmaker Christopher Nolan, who successfully rebooted the Batman franchise, as a producer.
"The stakes have never been higher," said Bock. He noted that if Man Of Steel proves as successful as the two Batman movies in the Dark Knight franchise - which have together made more than $2 billion worldwide at the box office - it could lead to a reboot of other DC comic book heroes.
Amy Adams, who plays Lois Lane in Man Of Steel, told Reuters the film "is adrenaline-inducing but it also has a really amazing heart to it. At the core, it has this truth that really invests you in each character."
With all the sequels and reboots, original action films hoping to kick-start a new franchise face a disadvantage.
Among the risk-takers are filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan and actor Will Smith with the apocalyptic After Earth, Guillermo Del Toro with his robot-versus-aliens action film Pacific Rim, and cult filmmaker Neill Blomkamp with his futuristic Elysium, in August.
Del Toro told Reuters that Pacific Rim, to be released by Warner Bros. in July, is "a quintessential summer movie," that features epic conflicts with robots and creatures along with "small scale problems with human characters."
Blomkamp told Reuters he felt good about Elysium competing with established franchises, saying his film has "all the elements that those superhero films have."
BRAD PITT, JOHNNY DEPP, BALLOONING BUDGETS
Family films are also big, with 20th Century Fox's Epic in which singer Beyonce takes a voice part, Pixar's Monsters University, Despicable Me 2, Turbo with Ryan Reynolds as a racing snail, and Smurfs 2, among others.
Comedies featuring big stars are also making a splash. Adam Sandler is back for Grown Ups 2, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn reteam on the Google-set comedy The Internship, Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy appear in The Heat, and Jennifer Aniston headlines We're The Millers.
But it remains to be seen if Brad Pitt can lure audiences to Paramount's apocalyptic film World War Z, a movie that Entertainment Weekly proclaimed as the most expensive zombie film, made at $170 million.
Disney hopes that the Pirates Of The Caribbean trifecta of Johnny Depp, filmmaker Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer can recreate that same magic when the team reassembles for Western The Lone Ranger - despite a budget that ballooned to a reported US$250 million.
"Certainly the title is a recognizable name, but do fans exist in numbers strong enough for the film to not only make money back, but also make a profit?" asked Breznican.
One film that does not appear to fit into any category is Baz Luhrmann's adaption for Warner Bros. of the The Great Gatsby starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which was moved from December 2012 to May. Karger called it "the one head scratcher going in to the summer."
Luhrmann, on the other hand, thinks the summer season is exactly when it should play.
"The book is set in the sweltering summer," the filmmaker told Reuters. "All the Gatsby parties, the cocktails - there's an opportunity for audiences to participate in the movie beyond the experience of the film."
