May Movie Preview: 'Spider-Man,' 'X-Men' and 'Godzilla'; Who Will Triumph?

The summer movie season is set to begin not with a whimper, but with a series of big-budget bangs, one right after the other. Three of the four weekends in May will see the debut of a new action-adventure tentpole picture, each one pretty highly anticipated. But can they all be successful in such a crowded month?

The first of the big films to release is "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," the follow up to the 2012 reboot of the Marvel franchise, which bows on May 2. The first "Amazing Spider-Man" was widely considered to be an improvement over the Sam Raimi-directed version of a decade earlier, and critics seem to think this sequel, despite a convoluted plot, is even better than its predecessor—so expectations are high.

Just two weeks later, though, a legendary Japanese monster comes on the scene, ready to stomp on the competition. This reboot of the original 1954 "Godzilla" hopes to erase the memory of Roland Emmerich's awful 1998 version, and with Bryan Cranston and Elizabeth Olsen in the cast, it has a good chance of doing so.

It will have to be efficient, however, because a week later, Wolverine and the gang show up. "X-Men: Days of Future Past" attempts to take advantage of the month's lack of Avengers and turn the X-Men back into the hottest Marvel property.

All three of these potential blockbusters are getting good pre-release buzz, but it's not easy to stuff three big successes into one month. In order for a film to earn hundreds of millions of dollars, it has to hang around near the top of the charts for weeks, and that's difficult to do when heavy-duty competition pops up just a week or two after a wannabe mega-hit's release.

"Spider-Man" has the best opportunity to get some momentum going, and "Godzilla" has lots of obstacles to overcome. "X-Men" is perhaps positioned the best; it has the most star power (Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence, Peter Dinklage and many more) and not much competition on its heels. Still, these three heavyweights are going to be slugging it out by the end of May, and it's possible that they could wipe each other out, so that none of them becomes this year's "Iron Man 3."