Paramount’s hotly anticipated Iron Man is set to open the summer movie season on Friday, while Maximum Films is hoping its counter-programmed Fugitive Pieces will lure adult audiences.

Pieces, based on the Anne Michaels novel, bows in 19 theaters across the country in cities including Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, going day-and-date with its limited release in the U.S. through Samuel Goldwyn Films. Meanwhile, the Marvel adaptation of Iron Man opens in 3,800 theaters across North America.

Maximum managing director Bryan Gliserman says the company has focused its marketing on specific groups with tie-ins to the drama’s themes, and held screenings for Greek, Jewish and literary communities. ‘We’ve been successful in generating positive word of mouth in response to those screenings,’ he adds, noting that the distrib worked with the Greek consulate, among other organizations.

Trailers for Pieces were also featured on specialty channels such as Bravo!, History and Discovery Channel. The drama was the opening film at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, though, as reported previously in Playback Daily, it has since been re-edited to give the story a happy ending.

Directed by Jeremy Podeswa, Pieces stars Stephen Dillane (The Hours) as a man coming to grips with the murder of his parents during World War Two. It is produced by Robert Lantos through his Serendipity Point Films.

This weekend will hear the starting gun for blockbuster season, though it makes little difference for Maximum, says Gliserman.

‘We try to provide films to our target audiences all year round…so we look at the [May] release date as just one of 52 weeks of the year that we’re going to try to take advantage of,’ he tells Playback Daily.

Also opening is Errol Morris’ buzzed-about documentary Standard Operating Procedure, about the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, on one screen at Toronto’s Cumberland Theatre. It is distributed by Mongrel Media.

In Quebec, Equinoxe Films is releasing the drama Maman est chez le coiffeur, from local director Léa Pool (Lost and Delirious), on 41 screens.

Meanwhile, Up the Yangtze passed the $500,000 mark in its twelfth week on screens. The milestone makes it one of only three English-Canadian documentaries to gross over half a million dollars at the box office, including The Corporation and Sharkwater.

Yangtze, which opened in the U.S. last week, bows in Winnipeg on Friday, while it continues its run in cities including London, Toronto, Regina and Courtenay, BC. The doc is distributed by KinoSmith Films, in association with the National Film Board.

Among other U.S. releases Friday is the Columbia Pictures romantic comedy Made of Honor, starring Patrick Dempsey. Coming up next week, Odeon Films will release Kari Skogland’s The Stone Angel, while the blockbuster invasion continues with Warner Bros.’ Speed Racer.