Can’t the girls play too? Everybody knows that summer is when the smug, smirking 16-year-old boy who seems to be in charge of Hollywood rules with an iPhone for a sceptre.

Well, this summer, the girls are not only playing the game, they’re adding some new flavors and expectations to old stories and old franchises. They’re a major part of the reason, in fact, that I’m looking forward to some of the summer films as much as I am.

How? Angelina Jolie is playing a part in the action extravaganza “Salt” that was originally written for Tom Cruise. And Scarlett Johansson, no less, is joining the “Iron Man” franchise in “Iron Man 2.” Best of all, Cate Blanchett is going to break most of the rules in Sherwood Forest by playing Maid Marian to Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood, the most grown-up idea of Robin and Marian since they were played in their twilight years by Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn in Richard Lester’s “Robin and Marian.”

But first, let’s establish The Batman Rule: Nothing about summer movies is a sure thing. Everything you think you know about a summer movie could be bologna. I’m naming it after Tim Burton’s original “Batman” film, which seemed, sight unseen, like a demeaning waste of a great film actor (Jack Nicholson) and the wildly creative director of the masterpiece “Edward Scissorhands.” And the first sight of it, in moviehouse trailers, made it look godawful.

Seldom have I gone to a movie with such dread. Seldom have I been so surprised to be blown away by what I actually saw, with that dark Mahlerian music by Danny Elfman, and those amazingly sinister sets by Anton Furst.

You can’t judge a movie –summer or otherwise –by its provenance. A low-budget independent movie can be an infantile crashing bore and waste of time. A mega-budget blockbuster can be a cinematic vision as haunting as Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight.”

So remembering the “Batman” rule, here are some of the movies this summer I’m actually looking forward to, as yet sight unseen.

“Robin Hood” (May 14). All I needed to know is that Russell Crowe will be Robin, Cate Blanchett will be a kickbutt Marian and Ridley Scott directed. If that doesn’t promise a Sherwood Forest of as much substance as blood and thunder and flying arrows, what does?

“Iron Man 2” (May 7). Rule of thumb: If you really know anything about movies, you never indulge in knee-jerk contempt for sequels. “The Godfather, Part Two” is a greater film than the original. On another plane entirely, “Gremlins 2” is vastly wilder and woolier and more fun in its pseudo-improv way than “Gremlins.” The new “Iron Man” still has Jon Favreau as director and Robert Downey Jr. as the hippest action figure since Jack Nicholson as The Joker in “Batman.” But now he’s torn between attending to Gwyneth Paltrow and Scarlett Johansson. Such problems.

“Shrek Forever After” (May 14). Yeah, yeah, I know some hated it at the Tribeca Film Festival. But a lot of people dismissed the first and second as just big wise guy stuff, which is why I like them and look forward to this one. They’re among the animated films that seem to have the irreverent wiseacre, pop culture-deriding spirit of those seven-minute Warner Brothers Looney Tunes.

“Toy Story 3” (June 18). It really IS a Golden Age of Movie Animation. Pixar movies help prove it – always.

“Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work” (sometime in June or early July). A hit documentary from Sundance about a species that ALWAYS makes for a great documentary subject – the itinerant comedian – whether we’re talking about “The Aristocrats” or HBO’s portrait of Don Rickles. If Rivers says what she does when mics are on, just imagine what she says backstage.

“Knight and Day” (June 25). Because of Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz? Nah. Because the director of this hot weather spy stuff is James Mangold, whose remake of the classic Western “3:10 to Yuma” was surprisingly meaty and GOOD.

“Ondine” (June). Colin Farrell discovers a woman he thinks is a mermaid. New fantasy by the great Irish fantasist Neil Jordan (“Mona Lisa,” “The Company of Wolves,” “The Crying Game”).

“The Killer Inside Me” (late June, early July). Classic, brutal Jim Thompson noir thriller gets the Michael Winterbottom treatment starring Casey Affleck as a psychotic SOB of a small-town sheriff.

“Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky” (late June or early July) It was at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, giving the world the news that once upon a time the couture legend and the musical modernist had something going on, at the very least financially.

“Inception” (July 16). The new film by Christopher Nolan, director of “The Dark Knight” and “Memento.” It would be worth seeing if it starred Howie Mandel, Ashton Kutcher and Regis Philbin. But, in fact, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

“The Kids Are All Right” (late July). The new festival favorite film by Lisa Cholodenko, director of “High Art” and “Laurel Canyon.” It stars Julianne Moore and Annette Bening as a lesbian couple and Mark Ruffalo as their kids’ sperm donor.

Get Low (late July or early August). Robert Duvall gets mortician Bill Murray to throw him a funeral before he’s actually dead. I’m there, dude, I’m there.

“The Girl Who Played With Fire” (July). Swedish follow-up to “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”

“Going the Distance” (Aug. 27). The new film by Buffalo-raised filmmaker (and Nichols graduate) Nanette Burstein starring, yes, Drew Barrymore, Justin Long and Christina Applegate. R-rated comedy.

“Nanny McPhee 2” (Aug. 20). No kidding. Emma Thompson wrote it. She stars. Maggie Gyllenhaal co-stars. So does Maggie Smith. What’s not to like? That’s enough reasons to go to three movies.

Well, then all of this is lovely, but what, sight unseen, do I dread the most?

Try these: “MacGruber” (May 21). The absolute pits – make that the pit of pits. A whole movie devoted to Will Forte’s staggeringly unfunny “Saturday Night Live” parodies of “MacGyver.” How on earth did they ever rope Val Kilmer into this?

“Killers” (June 4). Katherine Heigl Meets Ashton Kutcher. Object: “Romancing the Stone” Comedy Adventure. Oy.

“Life During Wartime” (late July or early August). Todd Solondz’s sequel to his nasty, condescending gigglefest “Happiness,” just in case we wanted to see what the grown-up version of trivial and infantile misanthropy looks like. On the other hand, it does star Allison Janney, Ally Sheedy and Paul Reubens (formerly Pee-Wee Herman). Remember, then, The Batman Rule and pray.