Commentary:

Between the Friday, May 2 release of Iron Man and the August 1 release of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Hollywood will enter its most profitable time of year: summer blockbuster season.

And while we wait for the new adventures of Batman, Hellboy and Indiana Jones (all coming out this summer), it's useful to look back and see where this grandiose phenomenon came from.

The blockbuster's "pre-history" began with a major blow by the television industry. The film business lost the battle for audiences in the early 1960s when the massive markets of the 1930s and 1940s collapsed into the small screen.

With profits dwindling, the studios began taking more chances in the late '60s, allowing directors to follow personal, often violent and controversial visions. Arthur Penn's Bonnie & Clyde, a heist thriller with serial killers as the heroes, garnered unprecedented success despite the taboo subject matter, further opening the creative window for a slew of young directors. What followed was the critical and financial success of films like The Godfather, which saw studios finding profit in less conventional fare.

After nearly a decade of successful dramas, courtesy of thespians like Pacino and DeNiro, the mixture of concept and mass marketing was fused in Steven Spielberg's Jaws. After successful test screenings, the film was marketed as a movie event, and on June 20, 1975, it made film history.

"The fact that it was released during the summer was instrumental not only to the success of the film, but as an indicator as to when is a good time to release a film," said Stefani Bardin, a media study professor.

Jaws would become the highest grossing movie of all time, setting the stage for Spielberg's contemporary George Lucas to up the ante.

Lucas studied the success of Jaws, combining it with classic storytelling and mythology. Taking cues from writer/theorist Joseph Campbell, Lucas realized that American films were lacking in heroism, villains and magic.

"If you believe Joseph Campbell's position that we live in a culture that is devoid of a functioning mythology, then the fact that so many of our biggest money-makers provide the overarching concept of myth is not surprising," Bardin said.

Through this moneymaking mythology Star Wars was born. Breaking the box-office records that Jaws had set two years earlier (and only beaten by 1997's Titanic since), Star Wars was the confirmation that the Jaws formula could be recreated.

What resulted was the quick and ironic death of the ambitiously controversial auteur-director pieces of the earlier '70s, which helped bore the blockbuster.

"Films like Nashville started to become more scarce," Bardin said, referring to Robert Altman's critically acclaimed, multiple-story film, coincidentally released on the same weekend as Jaws.

Only three years after Jaws, the summer season of 1978 offered three new blockbuster elements: Jaws 2 proved sequels could be easily worked into the summer routine; Superman was the start of a long fascination with superheroes; and Animal House made it clear that a raunchy comedy could be tossed into the mix as well.

In the '80s, these three rules took hold. Sequels seemed consistent until the franchise lost profitability. While Star Wars received two more nearly-as-profitable sequels, the low quality of Jaws 3-D led to the failure of Jaws the Revenge. Superman slowly withered in quality and returns until the unspeakable Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, while the Alien franchise found one solid sequel (thank you James Cameron) and two low-grade follow-ups.

Earlier franchises, such as Rocky (originally a November release) or the James Bond series, similarly adapted sequel marketing to fit the profitable business cycles.

While sequels were standard, new franchises showed up as well. The Indiana Jones trilogy, which becomes a quadrilogy on May 22, came in strong and remained highly profitable.

With the infrastructure for blockbusters in place, producing new profitable content became a matter of mixing formulas that had worked in the past. When sci-fi mixed with the appeal of family fare, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial was created. Likewise, Ghostbusters took sci-fi and comedy and churned out a hit.

The late '80s and early '90s saw a switch in focus to a strong, heroic male character up against impossible odds, thanks in part to war-based, macho action flicks, such as Stallone's First Blood and Schwarzenegger's Commando. Before long, rough, tough and ready to rumble (i.e Bruce Willis) became the alpha male prototype.

As blockbusters continued to become more and more stylized, true content suffered greatly, resulting in the birth of director Michael Bay (Pearl Harbor) and a late '90s era full of commercialized plots that often dwelled on disaster. Imminent world destruction was often the plot device to galvanize our hero into action. Will Smith emerged as a major star, through Independence Day and Men in Black.

Blockbusters reached what was arguably their lowest intelligence point during this period. 1998's Armageddon was a particular point of no return. Despite silly screen content, profits soared. The summer territory of "dumb Hollywood" took hold as Oscar contenders and motivated art films gradually moved into the fall/winter season.

With that, the three (generalized) seasons of Hollywood that we now see began: big moneymakers in May-August, critically praised and artistic fare in September-December, and "the rest" in January-April. Occasionally, as in the case of Best Picture winner Forrest Gump, a release has enough commercial potential to be released in the summer, gaining both major critical acclaim and major dollars.

"It's astonishing the number of movies [made in a year] versus the number [commercially] released, with the former being amazingly high and the latter, amazingly low," Bardin said.

From 2001 onward, the biggest films seemed to shy away from "realistic" disasters and towards more fantastical plotlines with a return to the "myth" movies of Star Wars. Indeed, the second Star Wars trilogy (two of which were past 2001) produced major returns despite some dissatisfaction from fans.

Superhero movies, having fallen off after Superman's demise and only having moderate success with the Batman franchise of the '90s, have become the Gold standard for recent summers. This trend continues with The Dark Knight, Hellboy: The Golden Army, and The Incredible Hulk, all set for power-house release dates.

Animated family comedies have also stepped up their game, routinely grossing more than their action-packed counterparts. Pixar in particular has found major success in this field.

The upcoming summer, true to form, includes a handful of superhero movies, plenty of sequels and TV spin-offs and a Pixar family comedy to boot. Maybe the blockbuster season is a bit predictable, even a bit silly, but audiences never seem to mind.