"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" is prepped to kick off the summer movie season with a growl, a slash and a bang on May 1, and what follows promises to be no less exciting.

"We do expect 'Wolverine' to be as big as 'Iron Man' was last year," said Greg Howell, general manager of Celebration! Cinema, 4935 E. Pickard Road. "Every weekend in May is going to be big."

Howell said "Wolverine" edged out "Star Trek" and "Bruno" to be the movie he is anticipating the most this summer.

"I'm just a big comic book geek ... and it looks really good too," Howell said. "The trailer probably looks the best out of any of those."

Oxford sophomore Dan Hayward said he is anticipating the movie, and hopes it will improve upon "X-Men: The Last Stand."

"I'm just hoping it's better than the other 'X-Men' movies," Hayward said. "The third one was just getting lame. I hope they can redeem themselves from being lame."

Broadcast and cinematic arts professor Ken Jurkiewicz said "Wolverine" is likely to have success when it is released, but he expects it to be short-lived.

"With the Marvel Comics audience, there's a built-in fanbase, it's going to be pre-sold," Jurkiewicz said. "What's interesting about the whole summer ... the new movies are released on Friday, and all the marketing muscle and all the publicity are focused on getting the maximum bang for that weekend, because the executives know a whole new blockbuster will be coming out the next weekend.

"What they dread might happen will probably happen: that the 'Wolverine' movie will probably be forgotten by the end of the month."

Trying to overshadow "Wolverine" the next week is director J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" reboot, starring Chris Pine ("Smokin' Aces") and Zachary Quinto ("Heroes").

"Well, everybody thought that 'Star Trek' was dead because the last few movies were duds... and they got J.J. Abrams to reboot it, and he very wisely went for the younger audience," Jurkiewicz said. "They had to do something. Either come up with brand-new characters, or go back to the origins."

The last three weeks of May are rounded out by a powerhouse trifecta of "Angels and Demons," "Terminator: Salvation" and "Up."

Jurkiewicz said the inclusion of a credible actor such as Christian Bale and a no-nonsense tone gives "Terminator" a better shot than it would otherwise have.

"The nudge-nudge, wink-wink sensibility (many genre movies have), I don't think that will be there for 'Terminator,'" Jurkiewicz said. "I guess what gives a summer movie the credibility it wouldn't have in the past is a serious tone, and a cast of A-list actors."

Howell said "Up," which is being released in 3-D, is the beginning of a campaign of 3-D movies by Disney and Pixar.

"We do expect ("Up") to be bigger than some of the past movies by Pixar because it's going to be in 3-D," Howell said. "They're expecting it to be big, and are using it to set up for 'Toy Story 3D.'"

Howell said following "Up," Disney will re-release the first two "Toy Story" movies in 3-D as a double feature this Thanksgiving, and "Toy Story 3D" is scheduled for release in summer 2010.

The film that many are expecting to be the big summer blockbuster is "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," releasing June 24. The film is reported by Empire Magazine to have a production budget of $200 million.

"The first one was phenomenal, so I'll definitely see this one," Hayward said. "It had so many action scenes and I thought the graphics were amazing. And it had that really hot chick in it."

Jurkiewicz was less enthusiastic.

"I thought the first film was abominable," Jurkiewicz said. "I thought it was loud and incoherent, and irritating on many levels. I'm not going to see ("Revenge of the Fallen") because life is short."

Jurkiewicz also is skeptical of the astronomical production budget.

"There's something almost suicidal about this," he said. "Given the environment of a new movie coming out every weekend, how do they expect to make that money back?"

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