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Although the start of the Summer Movie Season remains steadfastly fixed at the first weekend of May, the pre-Summer season, aka Spring, continues to grow in importance with more big time releases hitting in this period than ever before. These potential blockbusters still carry a bit of "not-ready-for-primetime" about them, though.

The 3D releases are starting to pile up on each other. After Avatar enjoyed an uninterrupted three-month run with the high-tech exhibition technology, we're now onto our third release in four weeks with the arrival of Clash of the Titans, a remake of the 1981 film of the same name about Greek mythology, which utilized Ray Harryhausen's classic stop motion techniques and starred Harry Hamlin and Laurence Olivier. Replacing those two in the lead roles this time are Sam Worthington and Liam Neeson, which is probably a lateral move at best. The major step up, or at least it's hoped, is in the effects, which get the full CGI treatment, and by reports some pretty shoddy 3D work.

The basic plot of the film sees Zeus (Fiennes), as ruler of Mt. Olympus, attempting to stop an invasion by the Underworld, led by Hades (Ralph Fiennes, who's kind of getting typecast in these things), with the world of mortals acting as the battlefield. In steps Perseus (Worthington), secret son of a God and looking for vengeance over the murder of his family, to kill the array of assorted beasties sent their way. Basically, if you're the kind of guy who wants to see a giant scorpion killed with a sword, this is the film for you.

Directed by Louis Leterrier, helmer of the better Hulk movie, Clash of the Titans is definitely trying to cash in on the renewed interest in the sword-and-sandal genre that's come about in the last half-decade or so, highlighted by 300's record-breaking weekend a few years ago. Not nearly as stylistically innovative, but less soaked in testosterone, Titans wants really badly to be the opening act to the summer action season. A poor sense of what the film is really about other than monster hacking and some shoddy effects (if the Kraken is their ace in the hole, they've badly misjudged) will keep this from really taking off though a strong first couple of days isn't out of the question. Opening at about 3,700 venues, it should be good for about $56 million this weekend.

So, there's another Tyler Perry movie. I'm tempted to just say $25 million opening weekend and call it a day, but then I'm not really doing my job, am I? All the same, there's not a ton more to be said about his films, which all have critic-proof opening weekends, fade fast and are back again six months later for another outing. With Why Did I Get Married Too?, he's literally rehashing stuff from a previous film of his, coming back to the four couples from Why Did I Get Married?, including Janet Jackson, Jill Scott, Michael Jai White and Richard T. Jones. You know what you're getting with these at this point, and there's nothing to suggest Perry's target audience is about to tire of these films anytime soon. So: $25 million. I guess that was the long route to that.

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