The summer movie season is underway with "Captain America: Civil War," leading the way.

It will be a period of struggle, not just for the major studios that need to rake in a healthy share of the box office, but also for filmmakers who hope to stay in the game and moviegoers trying to find something fresh and original at the cineplex.

Of the 33 films being released by major studios, only 12 are not sequels, reboots or stories based on popular video games or books. Subtract comedies and horror films from the list, and we're left with just a handful of entries.

One of those is Jodie Foster's "Money Monster," the May 13 thriller, starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, about a brash financial-news pundit who is taken hostage while on the air.

Foster, one of just two female filmmakers directing a major studio release this summer, says, "It's interesting to me that the studio system still sees women as a risk. There are movies that are part of the system we may not be that interested in embracing. I think that (having) more women in the film business" means it "will look slightly different than it's looked in the past...."

Stress levels run high, even for stars of some longtime franchises -- including Matt Damon, who returns July 29 in "Jason Bourne," directed by Paul Greengrass.

The actor says, "It's a different landscape than 2002, when the first 'Bourne' movie came out. It's like a high-stakes poker game that I don't want to be in. The swings are just so brutal. "Ben (Affleck) just opened 'Batman v Superman' a few weeks ago. Everyone ... in his life was nervous about it. You feel less a sense of exultation when they do well and more a sense of relief, because the bets are so big now."

There was an Internet backlash months ago when Paul Feig's "Ghostbusters" reboot, coming July 15, was announced with a female cast -- Melissa McCarthy, Kristin Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones.

Fieg says, "To put out a movie like this ... when it's all these big movies out there -- I find it very exciting because a lot of these movies are very male driven, even though they have some great female characters in them. To have this be about four incredibly funny people who just happen to be women -- I think that's really exciting."

Last summer -- the industry's second biggest ever, with a box-office take of nearly $4.5 billion -- seven of the top 10 movies were remakes, sequels or comic-book spin-offs.

This summer's sequels include "Finding Dory," "Star Trek Beyond" and "Alice Through the Looking Glass" as well as the superhero films "Captain America: Civil War," "Suicide Squad" with its DC Comics characters and "X-Men: Apocalypse." Less likely resurrections range from "The Legend of Tarzan" and "Independence Day: Resurgence" to "Ben-Hur."

Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island teammates Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone are among the few braving the sequel-strewn landscape with something different -- the celebrity-rapper parody "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping," opening June 3.

Samberg says, "We were looking at the schedule, and we were like, 'Holy crap, there's stuff that's coming out the week before and the week during us and the week after us, and they're all really big movies." Even so, he says, producer Judd Apatow and the studio "felt really strongly about summer and that we had something we could put there."

Steven Spielberg, no stranger to summer blockbusters, will be in the mix with "The BFG," his Roald Dahl adaptation with Oscar winner Mark Rylance ("Bridge of Spies") playing the Big Friendly Giant via a motion-capture and voice performance. It opens July 1.

Rylance says, "The exciting thing about 'The BFG' is the combination of Roald Dahl, who's just a superb storyteller, with Steven and (the late screenwriter) Melissa Mathison. It took five years to get made because ... initially many studios said, 'Giants eating kids? -- I don't think so!'... There's a marvelous, frightening aspect to the fantasy, as there is in the Tolkien books or the Grimm fairy tales that children can handle."

Other family films this summer include "The Secret Life of Pets" opening July 8, "Ice Age: Collision Course" July 22 and "Pete's Dragon" Aug. 12.

A smaller film with family appeal --"Life, Animated," arriving July 8 -- is a documentary from Roger Ross Williams about an autistic young man named Owen Suskind, who discovered his capacity for language through his love of Disney's animated classics.

"It's rare that you create a film like this that generations can enjoy together," says Williams. "In the summer, this is an alternative where families can ... see it and hopefully be inspired and uplifted."

Trailers

Captain America: Civil War

Money Monster

Jason Bourne

Ghostbusters

Finding Dory

Star Trek Beyond

Alice Through the Looking Glass

Suicide Squad

X-Men: Apocalypse

The Legend of Tarzan

Independence Day: Resurgence

Ben Hur

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

The BFG

The Secret Life of Pets

Ice Age: Collision Course

Pete's Dragon

Life, Animated