‘Black Widow’ and beyond: Here are summer’s biggest movies.

A fitting tagline for the upcoming slate of Hollywood blockbusters would be Summer Movies: This Time We’re Serious.

After all the COVID-19 fits and starts, the summer movie season is apparently on.

All the proof you need is that Disney is finally releasing Marvel mega property Black Widow July 9. The studio is hedging its bets just a bit — Black Widow is the first Marvel superhero movie to arrive with a “day and date” release, opening July 9 in theaters and online via Disney+ Premier Access for $30.

Marvel, in fact, has two titles dropping this summer. The other one, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, arrives in theaters Sept. 3 for Labor Day weekend, wrapping up a Hollywood summer slate that begins Memorial Day weekend with Cruella (also in theaters and via Disney+ Premier) and A Quiet Place Part II.

In between are dozens of titles, some featuring top Philly talent — M. Night Shyamalan has a horror movie called Old, Kevin Hart steps outside his comedy comfort zone to star in the tearjerker Fatherhood (for Netflix), Quiara Alegría Hudes’ musical In the Heights with Lin-Manuel Miranda gets its long-awaited screen adaptation, and Questlove’s Sundance-award-winning documentary/concert movie Summer of Soul arrives in July.

Oh, and Comcast/Universal has another Fast and Furious movie, F9, and rumor has it somebody in this one drives a car into outer space.

Here are some highlights:

Cruella. This origin story of the infamous skunk-haired Disney villainess reveals that the root of her pathology can be traced to abusive treatment in the bottom rungs of the fashion industry. Emma Stone has the title role of the design house peon made wicked by tyrannical (dalmatian-loving) boss Emma Thompson. In theaters and via Disney+ Premier Access now.

A Quiet Place Part II. Emily Blunt returns in a sequel to the horror smash directed by husband John Krasinski, whose character perished in the original when aliens attacked the family farm. This time Blunt’s character leads her children into a treacherous world still plagued by sound-sensitive aliens who attack any person who makes a noise, which would actually make an attractive premium upcharge in movie theaters. With Cillian Murphy, Djimon Hounsou. In theaters now.

In the Heights. This singing, dancing, ode to the Washington Heights neighborhood of Miranda’s youth is adapted from the 2008 Tony-winning Broadway musical he created with Hudes. The movie is directed by Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, the Step Up dance films) and features Hamilton star Anthony Ramos. And yes, you get a glimpse of Miranda as the neighborhood ice cream vendor. He even sings a bit. In theaters and via HBO Max June 11.

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. This rare two-apostrophe sequel finds bodyguard Ryan Reynolds in therapy, driven bonkers trying to protect reckless assassin Samuel L. Jackson. Now he’s assigned to guard the latter’s wife (Salma Hayek), a con artist whose swindles have attracted a swarm of revenge-minded victims. Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman round out the cast in this R-rated heir to the 1980s action comedy tradition. In theaters June 16, and yes, that’s a Wednesday.

Luca. Two tween sea monsters take human form to see what life is like up top and on shore in a picturesque Italian coastal town. The second Pixar movie, following Soul, to be relegated by Disney to streaming on Disney+. This movie, however, will arrive without the $30 premium markup — it will be available as part of the subscription price. June 18.

Fatherhood. Kevin Hart stars in this adaptation of the Matthew Logelin best seller Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss & Love, featuring Hart as a man whose wife dies in childbirth, leaving him to raise a daughter with the help of his mother-in-law (Alfre Woodard). Straight drama is rare for Hart, but not unprecedented and not unprofitable. His movie The Upside made more than $100 million. Streaming on Netflix June 18.

F9. In 1969, mankind recorded its two greatest achievements: We landed on the moon, and Chrysler started making parts for the muscle cars that Vin Diesel drives in The Fast and the Furious movies. Costar Ludacris has leaked, and Michelle Rodriguez confirmed, that in F9, somebody in the F&F gang manages to leave Earth’s atmosphere, and one prays that somehow, it’s Dom Toretto, in Maximus the Ultra Charger, the 3,000 horsepower beast glimpsed in Furious 7. Unrealistic? The box office returns for these movies have always defied gravity. This installment has already made $200 million overseas. In theaters June 25.

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Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). In 1969, a concert producer recorded hundreds of hours of footage from the six-week Harlem Cultural Festival, featuring Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Sly and The Family Stone, Gladys Knight & The Pips, the Fifth Dimension, B.B. King, and more. The job of assembling the material into a documentary (augmented with interviews) went to Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. His finished project, with a production credit describing it as a “A Philadelphia Jawn,” won both the grand jury prize and audience award at the Sundance Film Festival. Opening in theaters and streaming on Hulu July 2.

Black Widow. After the movie spent a year simmering on the stove, Disney finally releases Scarlett Johansson’s first solo outing in the title role, and reportedly her last. She is said to be “passing the baton” to Florence Pugh, whose character has a similar Iron Curtain backstory. Johansson’s Black Widow didn’t survive Avengers: Endgame, so this outing returns to events that took place just after Captain America: Civil War. Still, it is said to give Marvel fans the closure they wanted after Endgame. The cast includes Oscar winner Rachel Weisz. Directed by Cate Shortland. In theaters and via Disney+ Premier Access July 9.

Space Jam: A New Legacy. Reboot of the popular 1996 mixture of live-action and animation that paired Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny, plus an array of Looney Tunes characters. This time, the human star is LeBron James, who enters an animated world to retrieve his kidnapped son by winning a basketball game. Special appearance by Michael Jordan, making this the first movie to feature both Michael Jordan and Michael B. Jordan. In theaters and via HBO Max July 16.

Old. A new horror movie from M. Night Shyamalan. People (Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps) end up on a beach where they begin to age rapidly, resulting in panicked efforts to reverse the process. Sounds a lot like Margate, but the movie was actually filmed in the Dominican Republic, making it the first recent Shyamalan production to be filmed outside the Philadelphia area. The screenplay is also not something that Shyamalan dreamed up on his own — the film is inspired by the graphic novel Sandcastle, by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters. In theaters July 23.

Jungle Cruise. In this family-oriented Disney adventure, Emily Blunt searches the South American jungles for a fabled tree with magical healing powers, guided up the croc-infested Amazon by gruff but lovable riverboat captain Dwayne Johnson. To be released in theaters and via Disney+ Premier Access, and what an amazing coincidence that it lends itself to being repurposed as a theme park ride. July 30.

The Suicide Squad. The original was called just Suicide Squad, so this is a different deal, and they’re not calling it a sequel. It’s directed by James Guardians of the Galaxy Gunn, who promises that one or more of the franchise regulars dies in this movie, although in the world of comic book adaptations, you’re really nobody until you’ve died and come back to life. John Cena joins Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, Viola Davis, Pete Davidson, and Joel Kinnaman. In theaters and via HBO Max Aug. 6.

Respect. Completed nearly two years ago and delayed by the pandemic, this biography of Aretha Franklin has Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson in the title role, Mary J. Blige as Dinah Washington, and Audra McDonald as Barbara Franklin. In the meantime, McDonald was nominated for a best actress Oscar for her work in The United States vs. Billie Holiday. The all-star cast also includes Forest Whitaker and Marlon Wayans. In theaters Aug. 13.

The Night House. In this horror movie, a widow (Rebecca Hall) recovering from the suicide of her home-builder husband discovers he was hiding blueprints for a duplicate house. Then she starts seeing another version of herself hiding under the bed. Four bedrooms, three baths, one doppelganger. Question, though: Can a movie about a house featuring two Rebecca Halls really be a horror movie? In theaters Aug. 20.

The Beatles: Get Back. Peter Jackson’s skill at restoring and revivifying archival footage (as in his excellent WWI documentary They Shall Not Grow Old) is put to use on a trove of 1969 studio footage and audio recordings from the Beatles’ famous “rooftop” concert atop Apple Records headquarters in London. Jackson calls it an intimate look at John, Paul, George, and Ringo, writing and recording their last Beatles songs, culled from 60 hours of unseen footage and 150 hours of new audio. In theaters Aug. 27.

Shang-Chi And the Legend of the Ten Rings. Simu Liu has the title role as a Marvel character who uses martial arts skills to fight against elements of the criminal underworld. With Awkwafina. Scheduled to open here Sept. 3, but may not open in China at all. For the next 10 movies on the Marvel “Phase Four” slate, Chinese state media has acknowledged the release dates of all but two — Shang-Chi and The Eternals, directed by Chloé Zhao. (They also haven’t acknowledged Zhao’s best picture and best director awards for Nomadland). In theaters Sept. 3.