[Note: This is the first edition of weekly posts outlining what’s coming to the multiplex this summer. It’s also a sneak peak at what you can expect from next week’s Summer Movie Preview. Details on that are coming next week. In the meantime …]

FRIDAY, MAY 1ST

Box office gold: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Worth seeing? You mean you haven’t already? Wolverine got gobs of press a few weeks back when a working print of the film leaked onto the Web and was promptly downloaded by thousands of digital criminals. Fox News reporter Roger Friedman was even fired for publishing a review of the bootleg copy. Ultimately, your enjoyment of Wolverine will probably come down to how much you dug the first three X-Men movies. If you hated those, Hugh Jackman and his merry band of mutants isn’t going to convert you this time around. If you’re a fan of the original trilogy, though, word from Roger Friedman and the other brave lawbreakers is that Wolverine out-claws its predecessors.

Counter-programming: If Wolverine’s high-testosterone vibe is a turn off, there’s Matthew McConaughey taking a walk down dating Memory Lane in the chick-flick Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Or maybe you like the high testosterone; you’d just prefer it a little kinder-gentler? In that case, check out Battle for Terra. Terra has been around since 2007, but is only now getting a nationwide release — the delay due to the film’s conversion from conventional 2D animation to 3D. With the high-profile voices of Evan Rachel Wood, Danny Glover, David Cross and Mark Hamill on board, it’s not surprising that the producers decided to throw down the extra cash for an upgrade.

Previews of all three after the jump …

This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2009.