I guess North American audiences really were tired by time Memorial Day rolled around. Pirates 3 brought in an underwhelming $120 Million at the box office over it’s 3-day opening. People just got tired of going to the movies after Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third left audiences feeling a little let down. Pirates was the best of the lot, but not by much.Thankfully June is a break from May’s super sequels, starting with Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up on June 1. Apatow, the current king of comedy, follows up his sleeper hit The 40-Year-Old Virgin with a film about a one night stand that ends in a baby. Even though some are already throwing it in the “gross out” comedy category, this may be the only summer film to appeal to a more mature audience outside of art house theaters. The wild card? Can Seth Rogen pull off a leading role?

The biggest, blandest weekend may be June 8, where the studios have dumped three competing projects. Hostel II, Ocean’s Thirteen and ANOTHER penguin movie, the animated Surf’s Up, all open, making it the weekend I’m most likely to skip the theater. I’m even a fan of Eli Roth’s first Hostel, but if any movie needed a sequel less this summer, I can’t find it.

The likely candidate for June’s biggest movie is Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Advertisements have been playing up the bad-assity of the Surfer, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the sequel, again directed by the lackluster Tim Story, will find it’s way of sucking just as bad as the first one did.

On June 22, most people will be looking to Evan Almighty. Even with John Goodman by Steve Carrell’s side, the only moving I am desperate to see is a period drama about the guy known as the Mormon Moses. September Dawn tells the story about a massacre in 1857, ordered in the wake of Brigham Young’s rise as a “man of God.” I don’t think I would want to see it if it wasn’t for the trailer featuring a voice over from a guy who specializes in action-comedy trailers. I’m half waiting for Chris Tucker to pop out screaming “Man, why you always gotta be shooting those kids.”

Here’s the trailer. Good stuff.

The last week leading into July brings us Live Free or Die Hard, a film adapted from the script for WW3.com. WW3.com was converted into another Die Hard film because someone tossed a coin and the Lethal Weapon franchise got lucky. Don’t worry. June 29 is the best weekend of the month for audiences with Michael Moore’s Sicko, summer’s Oscar contender Evening and Pixar’s newest release Ratatouille opening for the none action-oriented folks.
Here are the rest:

June 1
Mr. Brooks
Gracie

June 15
DOA: Dead or Alive
Nancy Drew

June 22
1408
Captivity
You Kill Me

See, even Spider-Man is going crazy after Louis Stevens took number one at the box office for the third week in a row. Thankfully, the summer movie season officially kicks-off this Friday, May 4, with the opening of Spider-Man 3.

Word on the street has been that the third Peter Parker movie is the most expensive movie ever made ($500 million), which means it has to make $100 million+ opening weekend for Sony to even think about putting the cash down to make a movie about Spider-Man.

The good news is that Spider-Man 3 has a two week window to make some cash before Shrek the Third (May 18) with more theaters and a much shorter runtime begins running away with the summer.

Spider-Man 3 clocks in at two hours and 20 minutes compared to Shrek’s one and a half hours. Of course “Spider-Man” can rest easy because someone at Disney let Gore Verbinski fire his editors. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (May 25) will have a runtime 10 minutes short of three hours. That’s even longer than Dead Man’s Chest which was bearable only because of Bill Nighy’s Davy Jones.

I guess if Peter Jackson’s Return of the King can make a billion dollars with a three hour runtime on fan boy power, then I’m sure the teenage girls, twenty-something women and middle-aged women who seem to push POTC into blockbuster status will do the job again.

One reason I love the summer movie season is there is less crap filling the marketplace. Curtis Hanson’s long-shelved Lucky You will open against Spider-Man 3 because Warner Bros. didn’t just want to dump the movie, they wanted it to wear cement slippers. Thankfully it’s a two movie weekend, something doesn’t seem to happen to often anymore.

Opening against POTC is William Friedkin’s Bug which is the May movie I’m looking forward to most. A grotesque thriller from the director of The Exorcist. I’m there.

Shrek the Third has no wide-release competition.

Also opening this month, all on the dumpster weekend of May 11, 28 Weeks Later (eh), Larry The Cable Guy’s Delta Farce (ugh), Linsday Lohan’s Georgia Rule (eww), and The Flock, which merits looking into only because of the MPAA says it contains “perverse content involving aberrant sexuality and strong violence, and for language.”

See you all at the megaplex.