Summer Guide - Will history repeat for the summer’s latest would-be franchises?

“The same, only different” frequently seems to be the mandate under which blockbuster filmmakers must work. In the quest to launch or revive lucrative franchises, the summer films of 2015 see the reanimation of some series that have been dormant for years — if not decades.

The ensuing months will see such original films as Trainwreck, a showcase for bad-girl comedian Amy Schumer; the earthquake-oriented disaster film San Andreas with Dwayne Johnson; and an odyssey through a tween girl’s emotions, Inside Out, the first original Pixar film since Brave in 2012. But most of the hype will surround films that attempt to restore legacy series to the public consciousness. The following preview looks at the past histories, present efforts, and future prospects of the latest franchises seeking jump-starts.

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Mad Max: Fury Road (May 15)

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Past: Mel Gibson found his first star vehicle with Australia’s Mad Max (1979), which shifted into high gear with The Road Warrior (1981) and stripped the gears a little with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).

Present: Three decades later, Tom Hardy reprises the role of Max, a taciturn tough guy in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, who helps Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa (yes, that’s the character’s name) cross a desert ahead of a band of marauding motorists. Rumors hint that it’s essentially a movie-long chase scene.

Future: If returning director George Miller lives up to the go-for-broke panache and live stunts of the trailers, it could be the summer’s most exciting movie and the start of a whole new series.

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Pitch Perfect 2 (May 15)

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Past: The original film about a mismatched team of female college a capella singers offered a winning blend of underdog comedy and musical numbers back in 2012. Incidentally, Anna Kendrick’s signature “Cups” song has a fascinating history that goes back decades.

Present: Having taken the national championship in the previous film, the Barden University Bellas enter a worldwide competition that no American singers have ever won. Hailee Steinfeld joins the cast that includes Kendrick, scene-stealer Rebel Wilson, and Elizabeth Banks, who not only reprises her role as a judge, but also directs the film.

Future: Supposedly a third film is already in the works. Maybe they’ll sing on another planet.

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Tomorrowland (May 22)

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Past: From Walt Disney Pictures, this sci-fi adventure shares the name and spirited futurism of the famous Disney theme park attraction.

Present: Britt Robertson plays a young woman who discovers the existence of a super-scientific world, along with sinister forces trying to keep its secrets. George Clooney co-stars as a reclusive inventor.

Future: The Incredibles director Brad Bird has an excellent track record in animation and live-action, and at a time of countless dystopian teen adventures like The Hunger Games, it’s nice to see one that seems more explicitly utopian.

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Poltergeist (May 22)

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Past: “They’re heeere!” announced the classic original ghost story in 1982. “They’re baaack!” said 1986’s lesser sequel. The third film from 1988 had no enduring catchphrase.

Present: A band of angry spirits targets the youngest daughter of a suburban family, with Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt as the parents and “Mad Men’s” Jared Harris taking the role of diminutive Zelda Rubinstein’s ghost-busting psychic.

Future: The trailer promises more jump-scares and less satirical humor compared to the first film. But any ghost movie can apparently launch a series (June 5 sees the release of the third Insidious film since 2010), so Poltergeist could haunt theaters for years.

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Entourage (June 3)

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Past: Beginning in 2004, HBO pushed the comedy “Entourage,” about a movie star and various hangers-on as the male equivalent to its hit “Sex and the City” — and that had two successful film versions, so ...

Present: Attempting to make his directorial debut, A-list actor Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) needs all the help he can get.

Future: With such tepid anticipation for the Entourage feature film, show creator-turned director Doug Ellin will need a stellar performance to find anyone who’ll want more.

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Jurassic World (June 12)

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Past: The adaptation of Michael Crichton’s snappy sci-fi thriller became one of Steven Spielberg’s biggest commercial hits in 1993. Spielberg helmed the follow-up, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and sat out Jurassic Park III.

Present: Ignoring the sequels’ continuity, the new film finds the prehistoric theme park open for business — and then beset by a genetically modified super-dinosaur. Guardians of the Galaxy’s Chris Pratt plays a dinosaur wrangler opposite Bryce Dallas Howard’s corporate-minded operations manager.

Future: Universal Pictures bet on filmmaker Colin Trevorrow, whose only previous feature was the quirky rom-com Safety Not Guaranteed, to bring the franchise back from extinction. But how many times can they tell the same basic story?

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Ted 2 (June 26)

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Past: “Family Guy” creator and Oscar host Seth MacFarlane made the leap to the big screen by writing, directing, and voicing the title role in the high-concept comedy of a talking, pot-smoking, skirt-chasing teddy bear and his now-grown owner, John (Mark Wahlberg).

Present: Having married his girlfriend (Jessica Barth), Ted goes to court to be recognized as a human so they can have a child — with the help of John’s sperm donation. Yes, it’s a real movie.

Future: MacFarlane should have better success with Ted movies than his Western parody A Million Ways to Die in the West.

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Terminator Genisys (July 1)

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Past: In 1984 Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron built their careers on the relentless, well-oiled sci-fi thriller The Terminator. The subsequent decades have seen three sequels and a one-season TV show, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.”

Present: A time machine sends resistance fighter Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) to protect Sarah Connor (“Game of Thrones” star Emilia Clarke) from killer robots. The trailer suggests that the timeline gets crazily corrupted, with Schwarzenegger, as an aging “good” terminator, confronting his pumped-up younger self from the first film. How post-modern can an action film get?

Future: It’s up to director Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World) to find an escape from what looks like a narrative cul-de-sac.

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Magic Mike XXL (July 1)

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Past: Channing Tatum’s experience as a male stripper partially informed the hit 2012 comedy-drama Magic Mike, one of the last theatrical films directed by Steven Soderbergh.

Present: Whereas the previous filmed included some surprisingly serious commentary on the economic downturn, the new one, involving a stripping convention in Myrtle Beach, S.C., sounds a little lighter. Tatum returns, but Gregory Jacobs replaces Soderbergh in the director’s chair.

Future: It seems an unlikely subject for a film series, but it’d be great to see what future titles would be. Too bad, “Bigger, Longer and Uncut” is taken.

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Minions (July 10)

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Past: The yellow, capsule-shaped, nonsense-speaking henchmen first appeared in 2010’s Despicable Me, and it’s difficult to underestimate just how much kids adore them.

Present: For their spin-off, natural sidekicks Kevin, Stuart, and Bob seek a master and find a potential leader in Scarlett Overkill (voiced by Sandra Bullock). Jon Hamm voices her husband, Herb Overkill.

Future: Despicable Me 3 is slated for 2017, and you know more minions will be there.

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Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (July 31)

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Past: The caper-oriented TV show began its successful run in 1966, then became a Tom Cruise big-screen vehicle in 1996, with a different director each time, including Brian DePalma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams, and Brad Bird.

Present: The Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, who directed Cruise in Jack Reacher, helms this outing, which pits the IMF team against a secretive band of assassins called the Syndicate. Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Ving Rhames return, but where’s Paula Patton?

Future: Rogue Nation suspended filming to supposedly rewrite its last act, which doesn’t bode well, but the series will keep going as long as Cruise is interested.

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Fantastic Four (Aug. 7)

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Past: The eponymous comic book debuted in 1961 as Marvel Comics’ first superhero title, although the team never found the crossover appeal of Spider-Man or the Hulk. Low-budget movie maven Roger Corman made an infamously cheap adaptation in 1994 solely to retain the film rights — but honestly, it’s not that much worse that Tim Story’s two expensive screen versions.

Present: Chronicle’s Josh Trank directs Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, and Jamie Bell as a foursome who gain superpowers after exposure to an extradimensional planet in a more youthful variation of the team’s traditional origin. Toby Kebbell plays Doctor Doom.

Future: A sequel is already scheduled for 2017, but the project has been irradiated with bad rumors from nearly the beginning. Still, the trailers look OK, and Twentieth Century Fox will probably cling to the rights as long as superheroes are hot.

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The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (Aug. 14)

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Past: Before “Mission: Impossible,” this Cold War-era spy series teamed American and Russian agents from 1964 to 1968, but never had a film version until now.

Present: The CIA’s Napoleon Solo (Man of Steel’s Henry Cavill) and the KGB’s Illya Kuryakin (The Lone Ranger’s Armie Hammer) reluctantly join forces to fight a common foe in 1963.

Future: Guy Ritchie aims to follow his Sherlock Holmes features with a similarly speedy and stylish action series, and looks to be drawing from equal parts Austin Powers, “Mad Men,” and Sean Connery-era James Bond.