{{Short description|Months in which low-quality films are released}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2019}} {{good article}} thumb|right|A marquee in January 2014 advertising an assortment of films typical for that time of year|alt=A tall white rectangular sign with short phrases on it topped by a red sign reading "Showtime Cinemas". In the background is a gray sky; there is a light dusting of snow on the ground. Before the era of streaming television, the '''dump months''' were two periods of the year when there have been lowered commercial and critical expectations for most new theatrical releases from American filmmakers and distributors. During these periods domestic audiences are smaller than the rest of the year, so no tentpole movies are released. January<ref name="Guardian article">{{cite news|last=Bernstein|first=Jonathan|title=Why January is a good month to bury bad movies|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/jan/08/awardsandprizes.features|newspaper=The Guardian|date=January 8, 2007|access-date=December 18, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140929051530/http://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/jan/08/awardsandprizes.features|archive-date=September 29, 2014}}</ref> and February are usually most commonly described this way, with August and September sometimes included.<ref name="NYT mag article">{{cite news|last=Burr|first=Ty|author-link=Ty Burr|title='January Is Hollywood's Very Own Leper Colony'|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/magazine/how-to-survive-januarys-dearth-of-good-movies.html|work=New York Times Magazine|date=January 18, 2013|access-date=December 19, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140107172343/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/magazine/how-to-survive-januarys-dearth-of-good-movies.html |archive-date=January 7, 2014 }}</ref> Releases during those times primarily include films that would have been released at other times of year had they performed better at test screenings, films with less prominent stars, genre films (particularly horror), movies that cannot be easily marketed and films intended for a teenage audience, which has fewer entertainment options outside the home.
Several factors combine to create the dump months, most of them circumstances particular to the United States and Canada, the primary market for most major Hollywood releases. Both periods immediately follow the times of year in which the distributors concentrate films they expect to be the biggest critical and/or commercial successes, periods of increased spending on entertainment generally. While this often means that moviegoers have less disposable income afterward, economics alone does not explain the dump months. The weather and competition from other forms of mass entertainment and professional sports also play a part; the winter dump months are further affected by the Academy Awards eligibility rules.
The dump months evolved over the course of the 20th century. Although during the studio era most major releases followed annual patterns similar to today's, several classics like ''The Kid'', ''Shadow of a Doubt'' and ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' were released during January. Since the decline of the studios, however, memorable films from the dump months have become rare exceptions. Notable examples of these for films released in January and February include ''The Silence of the Lambs'', a well-reviewed box office smash that went on to win the 1991 Academy Award for Best Picture, ''Get Out'' in 2017, and ''Black Panther'', which became the number one movie of 2018 and a multiple Academy Award winner. In the late 1980s, ''Dirty Dancing'' and ''Fatal Attraction'' became hits following releases in August and September respectively.
Films released during the dump months have not always been consigned to cinematic oblivion. Some, like ''Tremors'' and ''Office Space'', have become cult classics. Starting with ''Cloverfield'', some 21st-century dump-months releases have managed to exceed $100 million on box office receipts. The similar success of low-budget horror films like ''The Devil Inside'' and ''Mama'' in the early 2010s has prompted studios to release films in that genre at times of the year other than Halloween and the dump months.
==Etymology== The term "dump months" comes from the belief that studios use the time periods in question as a "dumping ground" for movies they are contractually obligated to release but believe to have limited commercial prospects at best.<ref name="AV Club article">{{cite web|last1=Robinson|first1=Tasha|last2=Rabin|first2=Nathan|last3=Tobias|first3=Scott|last4=Murray|first4=Noel|last5=Rizov|first5=Vadim|last6=Handlen|first6=Zack|last7=Dyess-Nugent|first7=Phil|last8=Semley|first8=John|title=Hollywood's trash, our treasure: 17 salvageable flops from the late-winter dumping ground|url=https://www.avclub.com/article/hollywoods-trash-our-treasure-17-salvageable-flops-91570|work=The A.V. Club|date=January 28, 2013|access-date=December 19, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150922062108/http://www.avclub.com/article/hollywoods-trash-our-treasure-17-salvageable-flops-91570|archive-date=September 22, 2015|quote=January and February are when studios dump their discards, the movies they have low hopes for and want to disavow.}}</ref><ref name="Vulture post">{{cite web|last=Raymond|first=Adam K.|title=Just How Bad of a Movie Month Is January?|url=https://www.vulture.com/2013/01/january-worst-movie-release-month.html|work=Vulture|date=January 7, 2013|access-date=December 19, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150127031450/http://www.vulture.com/2013/01/january-worst-movie-release-month.html|archive-date=January 27, 2015|quote=For decades, studios have used the first month of the year as a dumping ground, either to even out their equilibrium from the past few months of releasing intelligent Oscar bait or to serve lovers of schlock who have been dying of crap starvation through said Oscar season.}}</ref><ref name="Atlantic post">{{cite web|last=Meslow|first=Scott|title=January: Dumping Ground for Terrible Movies Like 'Contraband'|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/01/january-dumping-ground-for-terrible-movies-like-contraband/251326/|work=The Atlantic|date=January 13, 2012|access-date=December 19, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151012234912/http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/01/january-dumping-ground-for-terrible-movies-like-contraband/251326/|archive-date=October 12, 2015|quote=Unfortunately, ''Contraband'' is par for the course for January, which typically sees many of the year's worst movies unceremoniously dumped into cinemas.}}</ref><ref name="Dealflicks post">{{cite web|last=Shane|first=David|title=Welcome Back, Dump Months|url=http://blog.dealflicks.com/post/30056586193/welcome-back-dump-months|publisher=Dealflicks.com|access-date=December 19, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220092459/http://blog.dealflicks.com/post/30056586193/welcome-back-dump-months|archive-date=December 20, 2013|quote=The box office hopes and expectations are coming back down to earth now, with modestly budgeted and often long delayed films being dumped, as usual, in the final two weeks of August ...}}</ref> "The big studios would never in a million years use this phrase", Dade Hayes, coauthor of ''Open Wide: How Hollywood Box Office Became A National Obsession'', told ''Newsday'' in August 2017. "[B]ut they do view [these times of year] as a dumping ground."<ref name="August 2017 Newsday article">{{cite news|last=Guzman|first=Rafer|title='Guardians of the Galaxy,' 'Babe' and more movies that overcame the August cinematic 'dump'|url=https://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/guardians-of-the-galaxy-babe-and-more-movies-that-overcame-the-august-cinematic-dump-1.13900787|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170805011501/http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/guardians-of-the-galaxy-babe-and-more-movies-that-overcame-the-august-cinematic-dump-1.13900787|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 5, 2017|newspaper=Newsday|date=August 10, 2017|access-date=August 13, 2018}}</ref>
Critics and journalists have no such reservations. "The first months of the year are known as the 'dump months' in Hollywood," wrote ''Vegas Seven'' critic Una LaMarche in early 2013, a period characterized by "movies that studios dislike, and want to release with little fanfare."<ref name="Vegas Seven article">{{cite web|last=LaMarche|first=Una|title=A Cinematic Dumpster Dive|url=http://vegasseven.com/2013/01/03/cinematic-dumpster-dive/|work=Vegas Seven|date=January 3, 2012|access-date=December 19, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219234846/http://vegasseven.com/2013/01/03/cinematic-dumpster-dive/|archive-date=December 19, 2013}}</ref> Likewise, Paul Shirey at JoBlo.com dismisses September as "one of the most worthless months at the box office."<ref name="JoBlo.com article">{{cite web|last=Shirey|first=Paul|title=C'mon Hollywood: Spread out your Oscar fare!|url=https://www.joblo.com/movie-news/cmon-hollywood-spread-out-your-oscar-fare|publisher=JoBlo.com|date=February 12, 2013|access-date=December 20, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151010022117/http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/cmon-hollywood-spread-out-your-oscar-fare|archive-date=October 10, 2015}}</ref>
Jay Carr, a film critic for ''The Boston Globe'', deployed the term in a 1989 article for his newspaper, one of the earliest uses of the term in print. "Everybody knows that January and February are post-Christmas dump months for the studios, when they open the movies that weren't strong enough for Christmas and aren't strong enough for Easter", Carr wrote.<ref>{{cite news | last=Carr | first=Jay | date=February 19, 1989 | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-wintertime-and-the-vie/185629196/ | title=Wintertime, and the viewin' is dreary | work=The Boston Globe | page=B42 | via=Newspapers.com | id={{ProQuest|294464554}} }}</ref> Use of the term became more common in the early 2010s.<ref name="NYT mag article" /><ref name="AV Club article" /><ref name="Vulture post" />
==Causes==
While both dump-month periods immediately follow periods of greater movie attendance, when event movies expected to be critical and/or commercial successes are released,<ref name="Film.com post">{{cite web|last=Legel|first=Laremy|title=Why is January a Cinematic Dumping Ground?|url=http://www.film.com/movies/january-box-office-slump|publisher=Film.com|date=January 9, 2013|access-date=December 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131226063034/http://www.film.com/movies/january-box-office-slump|archive-date=December 26, 2013}}</ref> and periods of greater consumer spending generally there are also reasons specific to both periods that further dampen movie attendance to limit the expected box office returns to the extent that movies with strong potential will be scheduled for other times of year.<ref name="Metacritic post">{{cite web|last=Dietz|first=Jason|title=The Nightmare After Christmas: Are January Movies Really That Bad?|url=https://www.metacritic.com/feature/are-january-movies-really-that-bad|website=Metacritic|date=January 5, 2010|access-date=December 19, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150215042004/http://www.metacritic.com/feature/are-january-movies-really-that-bad|archive-date=February 15, 2015}}</ref><ref name="August 2008 Vulture post">{{cite web|title=The August Movie: A Theory of Awfulness|url=https://www.vulture.com/2008/07/august_movie_awfulness.html|work=Vulture|date=July 31, 2008|access-date=December 24, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150102174535/http://www.vulture.com/2008/07/august_movie_awfulness.html|archive-date=January 2, 2015}}</ref>
=== January–February ===
The main impediment to the release of highly anticipated or high-quality films in January and February is the calendar of the two major film awards, the Golden Globe Awards (January) and the Academy Awards, or "Oscars" (late February or early March), which overlap with those months. The winter weather also adds uncertainty to estimates of potential box office. Two holidays during the time provide some slight relief; however, they are offset by the distraction of Super Bowl weekend, which depresses spending on movies. The combined gross for all January releases 2002–2012 has averaged $387 million; for February it is $615 million. By comparison December, with its holiday releases, averages $1.2 billion.<ref name="NYT mag article" /> {{Quote box |quote = ''It's easy to kill a movie.<br />Just move it to January''. |source = – Mike Myers as Dr. Evil, mocking the government of North Korea for supposedly sponsoring the hacking attack on Sony Pictures in response to ''The Interview'', on ''Saturday Night Live'', December 19, 2014<ref name="Mike Myers quote">{{cite news|last=Gajewski|first=Ryan|title=Mike Myers' Dr. Evil Mocks Sony Hack on 'SNL'|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/mike-myers-dr-evil-mocks-759767|newspaper=The Hollywood Reporter|date=December 20, 2014|access-date=January 2, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150505111328/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/mike-myers-dr-evil-mocks-759767|archive-date=May 5, 2015}}</ref> |align = left |width = 200px |border = |fontsize = |bgcolor = #ccccff |style = |qalign = center |qstyle = |quoted = yes |salign = justified |sstyle = }} Spending is low to begin with since many consumers are cutting back and repaying debts incurred during the preceding holiday season,{{efn|In 2017 a Gallup poll found, prior to the holiday season, that Americans expected to spend, on average, $862 on gifts during that time of year. Of those polled, 34% expected to spend more than a thousand dollars.<ref name="Gallup holiday poll">{{cite web|last=Saad|first=Lydia|title=Consumers Remain in Good Holiday Shopping Mood|url=https://news.gallup.com/poll/222455/consumers-remain-good-holiday-shopping-mood.aspx|publisher=Gallup|date=November 17, 2017|access-date=August 1, 2018}}</ref>}} as well as having less free time,<ref name="Film.com post" /> Jeremy Kirk of Firstshowing.net, when asked to explain the dearth of good films in January, notes that moviegoers are returning to their work and school routines during the month. C. Robert Cargill of Ain't It Cool News adds that only those over 35, "who have savings accounts and weren't tapped out by Christmas," can afford to go to the movies regularly then. He attributes the early-year success of ''Taken'' and its sequels to that market, as well as that of many of Clint Eastwood's recent films, to that older market.<ref name="Hollywood.com article">{{cite news|last=Salisbury|first=Brian|title=Why Oscar Season is Hollywood's Bad Movie Dumping Ground|url=http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies/55002083/bad-january-february-movies-oscar-season|work=Hollywood.com|date=February 23, 2013|access-date=December 20, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150912025644/http://www.hollywood.com/movies/bad-january-february-movies-oscar-season-57156667/|archive-date=September 12, 2015}}</ref>
The website ''Box Office Mojo'', which publishes reports on film grosses, divides the movie year into five seasons. It defines the winter season as lasting from the first day after New Year's week or weekend ends through the Thursday before the first Friday in March. The site's data go back to 1982, and in every year the winter season has had the lowest box office grosses. The weakest winter was 1983, when ''The Entity'''s $13 million take led the way to a total of $93.4 million in domestic grosses for all movies released during that season. On the other end, 2012 had the strongest winter, at $1.24 billion, topped by ''Safe House'', which took in $124 million.<ref name="Box Office Mojo Seasons page">{{cite web|title=Seasonal Box Office|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/seasonal/?chart=byseason&season=Winter&view=releasedate|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=December 22, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018051747/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/seasonal/?chart=byseason&view=releasedate&season=Winter|archive-date=October 18, 2015}} Click on the season names to view data for each season going back to 1982.</ref>
====Awards calendar====
At the end of the year comes the holiday movie season, when the studios release both tentpole movies, such as the latest installments in popular franchises that are expected to be highly successful and "Oscar bait" movies that are seen as likely to earn critical praise and, more importantly, nominations for major awards such as the Golden Globes and Oscars, the industry's most prestigious. Those nominations are then used to promote the film. But while the former nominations are announced in December with the awards themselves given in early January, the Academy Award nominations are announced ''after'' the Golden Globes, and the actual awards are not given until late February{{efn|Until 2004 both the nomination announcement and awards ceremonies took place later in the winter<ref name="Oscar schedule change">{{cite news|last=Willman|first=Chris|title=Who wins with the Oscars moved to February?|url=https://www.ew.com/article/2002/07/23/who-wins-oscars-moved-february|newspaper=Entertainment Weekly|date=July 23, 2002|access-date=October 19, 2015}}</ref> (the latter in April, as recently as 1988<ref name="60th Oscars">{{cite web|title=The 60th Academy Awards|url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1988|publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|year=2015|access-date=October 19, 2015}}</ref>).}} leaving most of the first two months of the year as Oscar season: a period during which any Golden Globes received as well as Oscar nominations can be used to promote the film to audiences, while studios lobby Academy members to vote for their nominees.<ref name="Metacritic post" />
To be eligible for award consideration, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences requires that a film be shown in a theater in Los Angeles County, California, for at least seven consecutive days during which it is advertised in print media.<ref name="Oscar eligibility rules">{{cite web|title=Rules & Eligibility |url=http://www.oscars.org/sites/default/files/88aa_rules.pdf |publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |pages=2–3 |year=2015 |access-date=October 23, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924141221/http://www.oscars.org/sites/default/files/88aa_rules.pdf |archive-date=September 24, 2015 }}; {{cite web|title=Rule Two: Eligibility |url=http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/rule02.html |publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110071910/http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/rule02.html |archive-date=November 10, 2013 }}</ref> Studios hoping to position a film for some nominations usually satisfy that minimum requirement, then ease them into wide release from then until the nominations and/or awards ceremony. The flexibility this marketing strategy requires means that screens be available, and studios limit their releases of new films during this time to that end. As critic Ty Burr explained in a 2013 ''New York Times Magazine'' article on the mediocrity of new releases in the first month of the year: "[T]he studios ... know our attention is elsewhere."<ref name="NYT mag article" />
New films shown publicly anywhere for the first time after January 1 themselves are ineligible for Oscars until the following year, by which time they will likely have been forgotten by critics, audiences and voters.<ref name="Metacritic post" /> ''The Silence of the Lambs'', winner of the 1991 Academy Award for Best Picture, is a rare exception, as the only film in the post-studio era released in the first two months of its year to go on to win that Oscar.<ref name="AV Club early-release Best Picture Winners post">{{cite web|title=Unseasonable prestige: 22 Best Picture winners released between January and July|url=https://www.avclub.com/article/unseasonable-prestige-22-best-picture-winners-rele-100489|work=The A.V. Club|date=July 22, 2013|access-date=January 7, 2014}}</ref> Burr calls it "the grand exception to the January Movies Will Never Amount to Anything rule," and finds that only one other classic of the late 20th century, ''Dr. Strangelove'', was a January release.<ref name="NYT mag article" />{{efn|Its premiere had originally been scheduled for the preceding November, but was postponed due to the Kennedy assassination.<ref name="George C. Scott bio">{{cite book|last1=Sheward|first1=David|title=Rage and Glory: The Volatile Life and Career of George C. Scott|date=2008|publisher=Hal Leonard Publishing|isbn=978-1-55783-670-0|pages=105–06|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VIwi8nGRuhIC&pg=PA105|access-date=October 19, 2015}}</ref>}} The 2017 satirical horror film ''Get Out'' is another example of a movie released in the months of January and February that went on to be nominated for various Academy Awards such as Best Picture, eventually winning one for Best Original Screenplay.
Theaters will also still be running any holiday-season hits even if they had not been nominated for awards, further reducing the screens available for new movies. Ray Subers, an editor at ''Box Office Mojo'', says there are two types of January moviegoer that keep December releases on screens throughout the months. "Discerning adult audiences", he told ''The Atlantic'' in 2012, spend the month congregating to those films on critics' lists for the best of the year they have not yet gotten to see, while "the general moviegoers are seeing the event films of December."<ref name="Atlantic post" />
====Winter weather====
During January and February, winter storms become more likely in the Northern Hemisphere than they are in December. While they do not affect the entire U.S., the Northeast and Midwest are particularly prone to them, along with most neighboring areas of Canada. This includes many major metropolitan areas, and movie markets, in both countries.<ref name="Metacritic post" /> right|thumb|A heavy snowstorm in February 2013 made it difficult for people to travel to movie theaters|alt=Several automobiles buried up to window height by snow that is still falling When winter storms hit, bringing with them combinations of precipitation that making driving difficult and sometimes dangerous, moviegoers often prefer to stay home. Non-essential travel is officially discouraged, and in severe enough weather all non-emergency driving can be banned in some areas until the situation improves.<ref name="Deadline Hollywood Nemo post">{{cite magazine|last=Finke|first=Nikki|author-link=Nikki Finke|title=#1 'Identity Thief' Steals $36M Weekend (Bigger Than 'Bridesmaids'), #2 'Warm Bodies' $11.4M, #3 'Side Effects' $9.5M: Blizzard Didn't Blitz U.S. Box Office|url=https://deadline.com/2013/02/eastern-winter-storm-could-devastate-box-office-as-movie-theatre-chains-shut-down-425686/|magazine=Deadline Hollywood|date=February 9, 2013|access-date=December 22, 2013|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914022003/http://deadline.com/2013/02/eastern-winter-storm-could-devastate-box-office-as-movie-theatre-chains-shut-down-425686/|archive-date=September 14, 2014}}</ref> In anticipation of the February 2013 nor'easter, which struck on the month's first weekend, three large chains closed down many of their theaters in the Northeast.<ref name="Business Insider Nemo post">{{cite news|last=Acuna|first=Kirsten|title=Winter Storm Nemo Is Already Wreaking Havoc On Hollywood|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/winter-storm-nemo-hitting-hollywood-hard-2013-2|newspaper=Business Insider|date=February 8, 2013|access-date=December 22, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224114841/http://www.businessinsider.com/winter-storm-nemo-hitting-hollywood-hard-2013-2|archive-date=December 24, 2013 }}</ref> Industry analysts feared that the storm could seriously impact the box office prospects of two films opening that weekend, ''Identity Thief'' and ''Side Effects'',<ref name="Business Insider Nemo post" /> both of which were seen as having potential to do better than most winter movies.<ref name="Boxoffice Nemo post">{{cite web|title=UPDATED: Winter Storm Nemo Fails To Stop 'Identity Thief' From Shattering Expectations |url=http://www.boxoffice.com/latest-news/2013-02-08-how-big-of-an-impact-will-winter-storm-nemo-have-on-the-box-office |work=Boxoffice |date=February 9, 2013 |access-date=December 22, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224090058/http://www.boxoffice.com/latest-news/2013-02-08-how-big-of-an-impact-will-winter-storm-nemo-have-on-the-box-office |archive-date=December 24, 2013 }}</ref> While it afterwards appeared that the two films were not seriously affected, and did better than expected, with ''Identity Thief'' even winning the weekend, despite generally poor reviews and word of mouth, with $36 million in receipts, overall box office was down 45 percent from the same weekend the previous year. ''Side Effects'' finished a distant third with a quarter of ''Identity Thief'''s take.<ref name="Deadline Hollywood Nemo post" /> The clearest sign of the storm's effect, according to ''Box Office Mojo'', was the 35 percent drop in earnings for ''Silver Linings Playbook'', then in wide release after several Oscar nominations.<ref name="Box Office Mojo Nemo post">{{cite web|last=Subers|first=Ray|title=Friday Report: Winter Storm Doesn't Stop 'Identity Thief'|url=https://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3626&p=.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|date=February 9, 2013|access-date=December 22, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150911083911/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3626&p=.htm|archive-date=September 11, 2015}}</ref>
====Holiday weekends and Super Bowl====
While holiday weekends in the US generally increase film audiences and thus attract major releases throughout the year, the two that occur during these months—Martin Luther King Day in January and Presidents' Day in February—offer only a modest prospect for improvement. The most lucrative take by any movie on Martin Luther King Day weekend is $107.2 million by ''American Sniper'' in 2015, its first weekend in wide release;<ref name="MLK day weekend all-time grosses">{{cite web|title=Top 4-day Martin Luther King weekends, All Movies|url=https://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/mlk.htm?page=MLK|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=December 20, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150916225149/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/mlk.htm?page=MLKOPEN&p=.htm|archive-date=September 16, 2015}}</ref> the previous best opening weekend was ''Ride Along'' the previous year, taking in $41.5 million<ref name="January all-time opening weekends">{{cite web|title=Top January opening weekends|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/month/?mo=01&p=.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=March 12, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905111600/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/month/?mo=01&p=.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref> ($48.6 million if the entire three-day holiday weekend is counted<ref name="MLK all-time opening weekends" />).
Presidents' Day benefits by its proximity to Valentine's Day (which, as it is always February 14, is often a weekday), which offers the studios enough chance of a payoff, usually from romantic comedies and other "chick flicks" marketed towards women as date movies. "[Some years] it's been six straight weeks of dreck until" that holiday, says Cargill.<ref name="Hollywood.com article"/> ''Fifty Shades of Grey'', the 2015 adaptation of the bestselling erotic novel, took in $93 million on its opening weekend, the largest take for a Presidents' Day weekend until ''Deadpool'' broke that record the year later. ''Valentine's Day'', the 2010 romantic comedy with a large ensemble cast, is third with $63.1 million. Third among opening weekends is ''Ghost Rider'', which took in $52 million in 2007; the best performance by a previously released film on President's Day weekend is the $62.4 million take by ''The Lego Movie'', a week after its release in 2014.<ref name="MLK all-time opening weekends">{{cite web|title=Top 4-day President's Day weekends, Opening Weekends|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/presidentsday.htm?page=PRSOPEN&p=.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=December 20, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150915015831/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/presidentsday.htm?page=PRSOPEN&p=.htm|archive-date=September 15, 2015}}</ref><ref name="President's Day weekend gross">{{cite web|title=Top 4-day President's Day weekends, All Movies|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/presidentsday.htm?page=PRS&p=.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=December 20, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150915011512/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/presidentsday.htm?page=PRS&p=.htm|archive-date=September 15, 2015}}</ref> In 2018, the superhero film ''Black Panther'' set a new record for that holiday weekend with $235 million<ref>{{cite news|last1=McNary|first1=Dave|title=Box Office: 'Black Panther' Heads to Glory With $235 Million Holiday Weekend|url=https://variety.com/2018/film/news/black-panther-box-office-opening-1202704091/|access-date=February 27, 2018|work=Variety|date=February 19, 2018}}</ref> In addition to the consistent popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, the critical praise and the holiday weekend, Marvel Studios took advantage of February's designation as Black History Month, a cultural event that made it an ideal time to release a film with such obvious African themes.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Wanshel|first1=Elyse|title=Black Panther' Is Breaking An Insane Number Of Box Office Records It's truly epic.|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/black-panther-box-office-records_us_5a8dc461e4b0273053a73325|access-date=February 27, 2018|work=HuffPost|date=February 21, 2018}}</ref>
Any boost movie grosses get from those two holidays, however, is offset by what typically comes between them. The Super Bowl, the annual championship game of the National Football League, has been in recent years{{efn|The first Super Bowl, which aroused little fan interest and did not even sell out,<ref name="NYT SB I 2015 story">{{cite news|last=Beschloss|first=Michael|author-link=Michael Beschloss|title=Before the Bowl Was Super|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/sports/before-the-bowl-was-super.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date=January 24, 2015|access-date=October 19, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150415054641/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/sports/before-the-bowl-was-super.html|archive-date=April 15, 2015|quote=Compared with the quasi-religious national spectacle that more than a hundred million Americans will watch next Sunday, the 1967 confrontation looked almost like a high school scrimmage. This should not be surprising: The Super Bowl tradition in the United States was begun, relatively speaking, as a last-minute afterthought.}}</ref> was played in mid-January;<ref name="NFL SB I page">{{cite web|title=Super Bowl I Game Recap|url=http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/history/recap/sbi|website=National Football League|year=2015|access-date=October 19, 2015|archive-date=September 5, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905081530/http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/history/recap/sbi}}</ref> by the early 2000s an expansion of the NFL's regular-season and playoff schedule had pushed it to the first weekend of February.<ref name="Super Bowl dates">{{cite book|last1=Massaro|first1=John|title=Super Facts of the Super Bowl: I-XLII Edition|date=2008|publisher=AuthorHouse|isbn=978-1-4259-8036-8|pages=45–46|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Li43jn08FSEC&pg=PA45|access-date=October 19, 2015}}</ref>}} played on either the last Sunday of January or the first one of February. It is accompanied by heavy media attention and frequent gatherings all over the country to watch the game on television, accompanied with food and beverages purchased with money that might otherwise be spent on movie tickets. "Does the Super Bowl affect ticket sales?" asks Scott Gwin at Cinemablend. "The answer, of course, is yes. In fact, there's a decent chance Budweiser spends more on advertising that Sunday than America does in theaters."<ref name="Cinemablend Super Bowl Post">{{cite web|last=Gwin|first=Scott|title=Weekend Box Office: Chronicle Works Its Powers Super Bowl Weekend|url=https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Weekend-Box-Office-Chronicle-Works-Its-Powers-Super-Bowl-Weekend-29259.html|publisher=Cinemablend.com|date=February 5, 2012|access-date=December 22, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151004201324/http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Weekend-Box-Office-Chronicle-Works-Its-Powers-Super-Bowl-Weekend-29259.html|archive-date=October 4, 2015}}</ref>
The most successful film to open during Super Bowl weekend is the 2008 concert film ''Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert'', which took in $31.1 million, almost half the total it would earn during a released limited to just that weekend and the following week. In a close second is ''Dear John'', grossing $30.5 million in 2010, for the strongest Super Bowl weekend opening for a conventional release.<ref name="Box Office Mojo Super Bowl weekend table">{{cite web|title=Super Bowl Openings|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/superbowl.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=December 22, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905103840/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/superbowl.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref> Both films had strong appeal to female moviegoers, an audience more receptive to moviegoing on a weekend dominated by a sporting event.<ref name="Hollywood.com article" /> The 2008 action film ''Taken'', which Cargill noted for its success in appealing to an older audience, took in $24.7 million on its opening weekend on its way to total receipts of over $100 million, making it a distant third.<ref name="Box Office Mojo Super Bowl weekend table" />
===August–September===
The year's other dump period straddles the late summer and early fall. "As we enter the dog days of summer, we get the summer movie season dregs as well," wrote PopMatters editor Bill Gibron, anticipating August 2013.<ref name="PopMatters August 2013 preview">{{cite web|last=Gibron|first=Bill|title=The PopMatters Summer Movie Preview – August 2013|url=https://www.popmatters.com/feature/173923-the-popmatters-summer-movie-preview-august-2013/|work=PopMatters|date=July 30, 2013|access-date=December 24, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151009083745/http://www.popmatters.com/feature/173923-the-popmatters-summer-movie-preview-august-2013/|archive-date=October 9, 2015 }}</ref>
left|thumb|Back-to-school sales adversely affect movie grosses in August and September|alt=Several people shopping in an area with high shelves on the right stacked with spiral notebooks and other stationery products in open yellow boxes. At the top of the shelves are several blue signs with a small stylized starburst logo in yellow and "Everyday Low Price" in white text, on a red background. Strip fluorescent lights on the ceiling illuminate the scene; a yellow sign hanging from the ceiling has an octagon with "back to school" and text in English and Spanish beneath it. On the left are shelves reaching camera height; a sign in the front bottom says "$9.97". By the end of the summer seasonal jobs end, just as with the winter dump months, and moviegoers under the age of 24, who make up 41 percent of the audience, a larger share than their overall portion of the population,<ref name="MPAA 2014 demographics report">{{cite web|title=Theatrical Market Statistics|url=https://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/MPAA-Theatrical-Market-Statistics-2014.pdf|publisher=Motion Picture Association of America|date=March 2015|access-date=August 1, 2018}}</ref> begin to return to school.
Tuition payments, and retailers' back-to-school sales further cut into movie grosses;<ref name="Film.com post" /> Huntington Bank's annual Backpack Index found in 2017 that costs for school supplies and activity fees, not including taxes or clothing, ranged from $662 for elementary-school students to almost $1,500 for those in high school.<ref name="Huntington Backpack Index">{{cite press release |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Huntington Bank Backpack Index: Back-to-School Classroom, Activity Costs Remain on the Rise|url=http://huntington-ir.com/ne/news/hban071017.htm|location=Columbus, Ohio|publisher=Huntington Bank|date=July 10, 2017|access-date=August 1, 2018}}</ref>
"The prevailing wisdom is that people don't go to the movies in August" due to family vacations (on which Americans spend almost $2,000 a year, on average<ref name="Allianz summer vacations press release">{{cite press release|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Americans to Top $100 Billion in Vacation Spending This Summer|url=https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/americans-to-top-100-billion-in-vacation-spending-this-summer-300487735.html|location=Richmond, Virginia|publisher=Allianz Global Assistance|agency=PR Newswire|date=July 13, 2017|access-date=August 1, 2018}}</ref>), summer camp, among other factors, ''Vulture'' complained as it pondered another potentially dreary month in 2008.<ref name="August 2008 Vulture post" /> While an August release can open as successfully as a film earlier in the summer, "[i]t just doesn't have the ability to run five or six weeks so there's a scramble for June and July," Ted Mundorff, head of Landmark Theatres, told the ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram'' in 2014. The type of films that interest younger audiences in the early summer, he elaborates, do not do well after Labor Day.<ref name="Star-Telegram August story" />
The summer dump period does not lend itself to being as clearly delineated as the winter dump months. In the past, it was usually considered to include all of August and September, and in some years still may. But, in years with many major summer movies, some may open on the first or second weekend of August to avoid competing with other such movies,<ref name="Dealflicks post" /> such as ''Guardians of the Galaxy'', the first-ever August release by Marvel Studios,<ref name="Summer movie season over?">{{cite news|last=Smith|first=Jordan|title=Is Summer Movie Season Becoming a Thing of the Past?|url=http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies/57225263/is-the-summer-movie-season-a-thing-of-the-past-guardians-of-the-galaxy?page=all|work=Hollywood.com|date=July 31, 2014|access-date=January 2, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921024131/http://www.hollywood.com/movies/is-the-summer-movie-season-a-thing-of-the-past-guardians-of-the-galaxy-57377132/|archive-date=September 21, 2015}}</ref> which earned $94 million over its North American opening weekend, setting a record for the month.<ref name="Star-Telegram August story">{{cite news|last=Darling|first=Cary|title=August: now a hot month for blockbusters|url=http://www.dfw.com/2014/08/13/917066/august-movies-blockbusters-guardians.html|newspaper=Fort Worth Star-Telegram|date=August 13, 2014|access-date=January 2, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150102173118/http://www.dfw.com/2014/08/13/917066/august-movies-blockbusters-guardians.html|archive-date=January 2, 2015}}</ref><ref name="Box Office Mojo August opening weekends">{{cite web|title=Top Opening Weekends by Month (August)|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/month/?mo=08&p=.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2015|access-date=October 24, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905083234/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/month/?mo=08&p=.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref> It was the only summer film to earn over $300 million domestically, and became the first August release to be the summer's top grossing film in over three decades,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Box Office: 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Wins Again, 'The Identical' Flops |url=http://news.yahoo.com/box-office-guardians-galaxy-wins-again-identical-flops-151811716.html |access-date=2022-08-01 |website=news.yahoo.com |date=September 6, 2014 |language=en-US}}</ref> and was also one of the year's top-grossing films.<ref name="Box Office Mojo 2014 top grosses">{{cite web|title=2014 Top Grosses|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2014&p=.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2015|access-date=October 24, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905095119/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2014&p=.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref>
It is August's last two weekends that are more universally seen as the beginning of the late-summer dump months,<ref name="USA Today August 2017 story">{{cite news|agency=Associated Press|title=Box-office eclipse: Hollywood has worst weekend in 16 years|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/08/27/box-office-hollywood-has-worst-weekend-16-years/606177001/|newspaper=USA Today|date=August 27, 2017|access-date=September 11, 2018|quote=Mid-August through early September is historically the sleepiest time of the year for the movie business ...}}</ref> when only forgettable films are likely to be released, with occasional exceptions like ''Dirty Dancing'', which went on to make $63 million domestically from its release in late August 1987, and spawn several sequels and a franchise,<ref name="Dirty Dancing box office">{{cite web|title=Dirty Dancing|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=dirtydancing.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=December 24, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151002112313/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=dirtydancing.htm|archive-date=October 2, 2015}}</ref> and ''Straight Outta Compton'', which stayed at number one for three consecutive weeks in mid and late August 2015 en route to making $161 million domestically.
At the beginning of September is the annual American celebration of Labor Day, the only holiday weekend during this period. Of all the year's holiday weekends it has reliably been the weakest in terms of movie box office, with the top opener and overall grosser for the weekend being 2021's ''Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings'' at $94.6 million, far surpassing the previous record holder, 2007's Rob Zombie-directed reimagining of ''Halloween'', with $30.5 million. ''Shang-Chi'' also broke that film's record for overall gross for a film released on Labor Day weekend, its $224.5 million take again far outpacing ''Halloween''{{'}}s $58.3 million.<ref name="Box Office Mojo Labor Day weekend">{{cite web|title=Holiday Opening Weekends—Labor Day|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/top_opening_holiday_weekends/?by_occasion=us_laborday_weekend&ref_=bo_csw_ac|website=Box Office Mojo|publisher=IMDb|access-date=July 7, 2022}}</ref>
Once September begins, younger moviegoers are preoccupied with starting the school year and thus less likely to go to the movies on weeknights than they were in summertime.<ref name="Fithian speech">{{cite news|last=Fithian |first=Don |title=State of the Industry Address, 2013 |url=http://www.boxoffice.com/latest-news/2013-04-16-cinemacon-2013-transcript-comments-by-john-fithian-president-ceo-national-association-of-theatre-owners |newspaper=Boxoffice |date=April 16, 2013 |access-date=January 1, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140102192050/http://www.boxoffice.com/latest-news/2013-04-16-cinemacon-2013-transcript-comments-by-john-fithian-president-ceo-national-association-of-theatre-owners |archive-date=January 2, 2014 }}</ref> As with the winter months, football also has an impact at the box office as not only NFL teams but college and high school teams resume play, primarily on weekends. "[W]e are left with a series of movies competing for box office scraps in a month when Hollywood assumes no one goes to the movies," says a Yahoo critic.<ref name="Yahoo September preview">{{cite web|last=Patrick|first=Sean|title=September Box Office Preview|url=http://voices.yahoo.com/september-box-office-preview-12309027.html|publisher=Yahoo!|date=September 3, 2013|access-date=December 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140729010330/http://voices.yahoo.com/september-box-office-preview-12309027.html|archive-date=July 29, 2014}}</ref><ref name="Box Office Prophets 2003 post">{{cite web|last=Doskins|first=Marty|title=September Forecast|url=http://www.boxofficeprophets.com/forecasts/doskinsseptember03forecast.asp|publisher=Box Office Prophets|year=2003|access-date=December 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140814021740/http://www.boxofficeprophets.com/forecasts/doskinsseptember03forecast.asp|archive-date=August 14, 2014}}</ref>
Some September movies have triumphed critically and commercially. In 1987, ''Fatal Attraction'', which opened in wide release on September 18,{{efn|Its release had been delayed in order to film a new ending.<ref name="Fatal Attraction">{{cite news|last=Dearden|first=James|author-link=James Dearden|title=Fatal Attraction writer: why my stage version has a different ending|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/mar/09/fatal-attraction-why-stage-version-different|newspaper=The Guardian|date=March 9, 2014|access-date=October 20, 2015|quote=Then the dreaded test screenings begin, the ghastly focus groups—at the time a relatively new concept. The audience loves the first 90 minutes, but absolutely loathes the ending. If we don't change it, we will have at best a modest success, a $40m domestic hit ... But if we do give them what they want, which turns out to be Alex blown away by Dan's wife, we will have a monster break-out smash. So, kicking and screaming, I agree to write a new ending|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151009064951/http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/mar/09/fatal-attraction-why-stage-version-different|archive-date=October 9, 2015}}</ref>}} succeeded at the box office. The movie stayed in theaters through June of the next year;<ref name="Box Office Mojo Fatal Attraction summary">{{cite web|title=Fatal Attraction summary|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fatalattraction.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2013|access-date=December 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905093414/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fatalattraction.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref> it also garnered six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.<ref name="Fatal Attraction Oscar noms">{{cite web|title=Fatal Attraction Academy Awards|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/oscar/movies/?id=fatalattraction.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2013|access-date=December 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906145847/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/oscar/movies/?id=fatalattraction.htm|archive-date=September 6, 2015}}</ref> Twelve years later, in 1999, the similarly successful ''American Beauty'', which had been in limited release through September before going wide in October,<ref name="Box Office Mojo American Beauty summary">{{cite web|title=American Beauty summary|url=https://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=americanbeauty.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2013|access-date=December 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905093015/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=americanbeauty.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref> won that award and four others.<ref name="American Beauty Oscar noms">{{cite web|title=American Beauty Academy Awards|url=https://boxofficemojo.com/oscar/movies/?id=americanbeauty.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2013|access-date=December 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905102053/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/oscar/movies/?id=americanbeauty.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref>
September's counterpart to Sundance, the Toronto International Film Festival, is held at the end of the month. The film community's attention is focused on the Canadian city. Critics gather to see potential Oscar contenders among the many independent films on the program and studio executives look to line up distribution deals with the same prize in mind. Some of the best are released within a week or so, ending the September dump period.<ref name="JoBlo.com article" /><ref name="2009 NYT TIFF story">{{cite news|last=Cieply|first=Michael|title=Oscar Race May Heat Up at Festival in Toronto |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/movies/01toronto.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date=August 31, 2009|access-date=December 25, 2013}}</ref>
In past years, October also was when eagerly anticipated horror films reached screens, to capitalize on the approach of Halloween at the end of the month. However, this began to change in the 2000s due to the way series such as the ''Saw'' and ''Paranormal Activity'' films dominated that period, prompting distributors of other horror films to consider releasing them during the winter dump months instead. In 2012 Paramount enjoyed huge success with the unheralded ''The Devil Inside'', released right after New Year's Day<ref name="Box Office Mojo Devil Inside summary">{{cite web|title=Devil Inside summary|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=devilinside.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2013|access-date=December 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905193324/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=devilinside.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref> despite a strongly negative critical and audience reaction; the next year ''Mama'' was received enthusiastically by critics and filmgoers when it came out on Martin Luther King Day weekend<ref name="Box Office Mojo Mama summary">{{cite web|title=Mama summary|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=mama.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2013|access-date=December 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905091817/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=mama.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref> after being rescheduled from the previous October to avoid going up against ''Sinister'' and ''Paranormal Activity 4''. Only one major horror film, the third adaptation of Stephen King's ''Carrie'', was released in October 2013, and it underperformed. "At your local multiplex, the spirit of Halloween is, sadly, dead," Matt Barone wrote in ''Complex''. "Horror's now too big of a business for major studios to care much about October."<ref name="Complex October story">{{cite news|last=Barone|first=Matt|title=Why Did Hollywood Give Up on Halloween This Year?|url=http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/10/hollywood-halloween-movies|work=Complex|date=October 21, 2013|access-date=October 24, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150113030459/http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/10/hollywood-halloween-movies|archive-date=January 13, 2015}}</ref><ref name="USA Today October 2013 story">{{cite news|last=Alexander|first=Bryan|title=Who killed the Halloween horror movies?|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2013/09/30/halloween-horror-movies/2762109/|newspaper=USA Today|date=October 1, 2013|access-date=December 25, 2013}}</ref>
==Statistical analyses== The dump months' obstacles are reflected in their box office totals, particularly the success of movies opening during those months. January's strongest domestic opening weekend ever was the $90 million ''American Sniper'' took in when it went into wide release on Martin Luther King Day weekend in 2015. The best opening weekend for a movie seeing screens for the first time in January was the $42 million pulled in by ''Ride Along'' the year before; it is the lowest best opening weekend gross for any month.{{efn|Based on standard two-day weekend totals. If the Martin Luther King Day holiday of ''Ride Along''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s opening weekend is included, its total opening weekend gross is $48.6 million,<ref name="Ride Along by weekend">{{cite web|title=Ride Along weekends|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=ridealong.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2015|access-date=October 20, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905185910/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=ridealong.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref> more than ''Hotel Transylvania 2''.}} September's best was the $48 million that ''Hotel Transylvania 2'' took in following its 2015 release,<ref name="Hotel Transylvania 2 opening weekend">{{cite news|last=Hamedy|first=Saba|title='Hotel Transylvania 2' surprises with $47.5 million, sets September record|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-box-office-hotel-transylvania-2-the-intern-green-inferno-everest-maze-runner-scorch-trials-20150927-story.html|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=September 27, 2015|access-date=September 27, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151024132456/http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-box-office-hotel-transylvania-2-the-intern-green-inferno-everest-maze-runner-scorch-trials-20150927-story.html|archive-date=October 24, 2015}}</ref> until the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King's ''It'' eclipsed it with $123 million,<ref name="Box Office Mojo It opening weekend record">{{cite web|title=Top September opening weekends|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/month/?mo=09&sort=opengross&order=DESC&p=.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2017|access-date=September 17, 2017}}</ref> August and February are fourth and fifth, respectively, with ''Suicide Squad'' at $133.7 million and ''Black Panther'' at $202 million respectively (the all-time champion is December, reflecting ''Spider-Man: No Way Home'''s $260 million it made during its 2021 opening weekend).
In January 2010, ''Metacritic'' editor Jason Dietz undertook a statistical analysis of whether films released in that month were, as perceived, inferior. He compared the site's aggregate scores, based on critical and audience consensus, for films released in January, February, and March from 2000 to 2009. January averaged the fewest releases of the three, and the lowest average scores. Of the 88 films released in the first month of the year during that decade, only six earned above a 61 average on the site's scale of 0 to 100,{{efn|The scores given critical reviews are assigned by the website's staff, making them subjective.<ref name="Metacritic scoring system">{{cite web|url=https://www.metacritic.com/about-metascores|title=How We Create the Metascore Magic|year=2015|access-date=October 20, 2015|website=Metacritic|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150928225241/http://www.metacritic.com/about-metascores|archive-date=September 28, 2015}}</ref>}} the lowest of any of the three winter months, even accounting for the increase in releases as the spring becomes closer.<ref name="Metacritic post" /> It did not seem to Dietz as if there was any relationship between critical praise and audience enthusiasm for January films. The best-rated, Disney's 2004 animated musical ''Teacher's Pet'', was a commercial failure, as was 2001's ''The Pledge''. ''Cloverfield'', the third entry, was a success, and behind it ''Freedom Writers'' had ridden its good reviews to do some modest box office in 2007; however ''How She Move'' had flopped that same year.<ref name="Metacritic post" />
Conversely, some of the successful January releases did not meet with critical acclaim. ''Taken'' had been highly successful at the end of the month in 2009 despite reviews that ranged across the spectrum. And two weeks before that film's release, the universally panned comedy ''Paul Blart: Mall Cop'' had opened strong on its way to a total take over $150 million,<ref name="Metacritic post" /> beating the previous year's ''Cloverfield'' for the highest-grossing January movie until ''Bad Boys for Life'' 12 years later.<ref name="Box Office Mojo top January releases">{{cite web|title=Top Grossers for January, Indexed by Total Gross|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/month/january/?grossesOption=totalGrosses&releaseScale=wide&sort=topReleaseGross&ref_=bo_ml__resort#table|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=July 8, 2022}}</ref>
Contemplating the offerings for January 2013, Adam Raymond at ''Vulture'' undertook a ranking of a quarter-century of Januarys based on scores at Rotten Tomatoes (RT), another review aggregator. He averaged the ratings for all films released in a particular January, with the best and worst scores noted. By this method the best and worst Januarys were both in the earliest years for which the site kept scores. "[T]his could be more a result of the fact that far fewer movies used to be released then, so it took less to sway the average," Raymond noted.<ref name="Vulture post" />
The best January was also the first, 1987, whose 79% average was led by Woody Allen's acclaimed ''Radio Days''. At 95%, it was also the best-rated January film during the survey period. That month's lowest-rated new release, ''Outrageous Fortune'', still managed a 50% rating, better than the average for all but one of the other years.<ref name="Vulture post" />
At the other end was January 1989, where the 26% achieved by ''Gleaming the Cube'' and the 0% awarded to ''DeepStar Six'' bracketed a 16% average. Five other January films joined it at the bottom of the scale.<ref name="Vulture post" /> It was recognized as a nadir among Januarys even at the time. In a contemporary essay in ''The New York Times'' after the month had concluded, an exasperated Janet Maslin presciently noted that "the January that has just ended really looks like one for the record books."<ref name="Janet Maslin 1989 essay">{{cite news|last=Maslin|first=Janet|author-link=Janet Maslin|title=Film View: Is January the Cruelest Month?|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/05/movies/film-view-is-january-the-cruelest-month.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date=February 5, 1989|access-date=December 31, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150525110650/http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/05/movies/film-view-is-january-the-cruelest-month.html|archive-date=May 25, 2015}}</ref>
Among the 21st-century Januarys, 2011 did the best at 39%, led by ''The Way Back'''s 75%. The worst was 2003, when ''Final Destination 2'' led the pack to a 23% average with its score of 47%. ''Kangaroo Jack'' brought up the rear at 8%.<ref name="Vulture post" />
Looking ahead to the movies of February 2014, Chris Kirk and Kim Thompson at ''Slate'' argued that February's movies were statistically the worst of any month. Their evidence was the average RT ratings for all movies for each month between 2000 and 2013. February's averaged 45%, three points lower than January and September and four below August. February also had the worst month in the entire sample period, with the 2001 releases from that month coming in at 31%; 2010 and 2012 tied for the best February at 54%.<ref name="Slate February 2014 article">{{cite news|last1=Kirk|first1=Chris|last2=Thompson|title=Confirmed: February Movies Suck|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/brow_beat/2014/02/february_movies_are_bad_here_s_statistical_proof_of_it.html|newspaper=Slate|date=February 6, 2014|access-date=February 7, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150417164703/http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/brow_beat/2014/02/february_movies_are_bad_here_s_statistical_proof_of_it.html|archive-date=April 17, 2015}}</ref>
No comparable analysis has ever been done on films released during the late-summer dump months. At the end of July 2008, ''Vulture'' again greeted the coming month with two posts on the drop in movie quality historically associated with the month, and its theories for what might explain that.<ref name="August 2008 Vulture post" /> One was a history of the previous 15 Augusts, with movies released in each month subjectively rated as "halfway-decent" or "lousy".<ref name="August 2008 history Vulture post">{{cite web|title=The August Movie: A History|url=https://www.vulture.com/2008/07/history_of_august.html|work=Vulture|date=July 31, 2008|access-date=December 29, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150102213255/http://www.vulture.com/2008/07/history_of_august.html|archive-date=January 2, 2015}}</ref> It concluded that over that time there had been 169 lousy movies, and 26 halfway-decent ones. "That's 11.2 movies per August that make you want to claw your eyes out."<ref name="August 2008 Vulture post" />
Most of the Augusts in the time period in question had one or two "halfway-decent" movies, with the other 9–11 movies discarded as "lousy". The exceptions were the consecutive years 1998–99. The former was regarded as the worst August, with no halfway-decent movies and all its releases (''The Avengers'', ''How Stella Got Her Groove Back'' and ''Halloween H20'', among others) considered lousy. But in August 1999, there were five halfway-decent films: ''The Sixth Sense'', ''The Thomas Crown Affair'', ''The Iron Giant'', ''Dick'' and ''Bowfinger''.<ref name="August 2008 history Vulture post" />
==History==
According to Burr, from the earliest days of the studio system major releases had largely followed the same calendar modern audiences would recognize, clustered during spring, summer, and the end-of-year holidays. "Yet January was still in the mix," he observes. "Silent-era Charlie Chaplin hits like ''The Kid'' (1921) and ''The Circus'' (1928), the Garbo/John Gilbert melodrama ''Flesh and the Devil'' (1927) and Josef von Sternberg's ''Last Command'' (1928) all came out during the first month of the year."<ref name="NYT mag article" /> [[File:Chaplin The Kid 3.jpg|thumb|right|Charlie Chaplin in ''The Kid'', a classic released in January 1921|alt=A black and white image of a young man with a mustache and a bowler hat peaking around from behind a brick corner with a police officer behind them]] The best decade for January movies, Burr writes, may well have been the 1940s. It began with what he suggests was the best January in cinema history. ''The Grapes of Wrath'', ''His Girl Friday'' and ''The Shop Around the Corner'', all considered classics, were released in January 1940. Later in the decade, other classic films would first reach screens during January, such as ''Sullivan's Travels'', ''Shadow of a Doubt'' and ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre''.<ref name="NYT mag article" />
A few months after ''Treasure''{{'s}} release, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in ''United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.'', holding that it was a violation of antitrust law for the studios to own theater chains as well. This has historically been seen as the beginning of the end of the studio system.<ref name="Paramount Pictures case">{{cite web|title=The day the Supreme Court killed Hollywood's studio system|url=http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/05/the-day-the-supreme-court-killed-hollywoods-studio-system/|publisher=National Constitution Center|date=May 5, 2014|access-date=April 24, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129063359/http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/05/the-day-the-supreme-court-killed-hollywoods-studio-system/|archive-date=November 29, 2014}}</ref> Burr found that after it, with movies having less of a guaranteed box office since an adequate theatrical run was no longer a certainty, "release patterns began to clump more formally around big weekends, warmer weather and national holidays."<ref name="NYT mag article" />
In the mid-1970s, the studios discovered the summer blockbuster via the success of ''Jaws'' and ''Star Wars''. In the following decade the rise of independent producers dedicated to quality such as Merchant Ivory and Harvey Weinstein made the October–December the year's other highlight. But those two concentrations left the post-holiday winter and late summer as the lows that followed the highs. By the 2010s, Burr said, "August is death by ennui. And January is suicide."<ref name="NYT mag article" /> Similarly, ''The A.V. Club'' had noted at the same time, "over the past few decades, the American movie schedule has calcified ... January and February are when studios dump their discards, the movies they have low hopes for and want to disavow."<ref name="AV Club article" />
Producer Daniel Melnick, whose ''Altered States'' was moved up a month into the 1980 Christmas season by the studio over his objections, complained about this in an interview at the time. "I would rather go at a time when there are fewer people attending movies and offer them pictures they want to see, rather than to divide a larger audience with ten other desirable films ... [A]s an industry we have very often shown the instinct of lemmings ... We're all convinced that people go to the movies primarily at Christmas time, so we release our big pictures then ..."<ref name="Adventures in the Screen Trade">{{cite book|last=Goldman|first=William|title=Adventures in the Screen Trade|year=1982|publisher=Hachette Digital|isbn=978-1-4555-2546-1|page=63|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qdNXo2952boC&pg=PT63|access-date=March 11, 2014}}</ref>
By the end of that decade critics had taken notice as well. After January 1989, the month that ''Vulture'' would 24 years later find to be the movies' worst January ever, ''New York Times'' critic Janet Maslin had had enough. Her idea of "movie hell" she said, included among other indignities having to watch only January releases. "It's well known that January films have a character that is, let us say, distinctive ... What is it that leads film distributors to regard January as just the right resting place for so many flukes, black sheep, wild cards and also-rans?" She allowed that recent years had allowed some good films, such as ''Radio Days'' and ''El Norte'', to get attention they might not have in other months of the year. However, that January had had as one its major releases ''The January Man'', a thriller she characterized as aptly titled, despite not even being the worst the month had to offer (that dubious honor, she suggested, went to ''Deepstar Six'').<ref name="Janet Maslin 1989 essay" />
Despite the critical and commercial success of ''The Silence of the Lambs'' in 1991, Burr qualified it as an exception that proved the rule. First, it had been released at the very end of January; and second, it had only gone into wide release two weeks later. Such a strategy is typical of January, Burr writes. "[It']s a studio's way of gritting its teeth and ripping off the Band-Aid."<ref name="NYT mag article" />
The pattern of January as the slow month of the movie release calendar continued for almost three decades. January 2020 may have marked the beginning of a change with new extremes reached at both ends of the scale. Films such as ''Dolittle'' and ''The Turning'' followed the dump month pattern of poor critical reception and rescheduled releases after troubled and lengthy productions. At the end of the month, the Blake Lively action thriller ''The Rhythm Section'' pulled in just $2.7 million on its opening weekend,<ref>{{cite web|title=The Rhythm Section|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3775038977/weekend/?ref_=bo_rl_tab#tabs|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=July 7, 2022}}</ref> the worst opening weekend ever for a movie on 3,000 or more screens;<ref>{{Cite web| last=D'Alessandro|first=Anthony|url= https://deadline.com/2020/02/rhythm-section-box-office-bomb-blake-lively-paramount-james-bond-007-1202849211/ |title=What Went Wrong With 'The Rhythm Section'? Action Pic Could Lose $30M+ |website=Deadline Hollywood|access-date=July 7, 2022|date=February 2, 2020}}</ref> after the take dropped to a million the next weekend Paramount pulled it from 2,955 of those screens, breaking a record set by ''The Darkest Minds'' in 2018.<ref name="BOM drops record">{{cite web|title=Biggest Theater Drops|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/biggest_third_weekend_num_theaters_drop/?ref_=bo_csm_ac|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=July 7, 2022}}</ref>{{efn|That record is for the most total screens dropped. The record for the largest portion of screens a film has been dropped from was set by February 2017's ''A Cure for Wellness'', which went from 2,704 to 88 screens between its second and third weeks, for a 97.8 percent decline, compared to 97.5 percent for ''The Rhythm Section''.<ref name="BOM drops record" />}} At the same time ''Bad Boys for Life'' had a $60 million opening weekend on its way to a $204.4 million worldwide gross, both new records for January releases,<ref name="Box Office Mojo top January releases" /> helped by favorable critical notice. Studios were beginning to see potential for commercial success in January.<ref name="Collider 2022 story">{{cite news|last=Laman|first=Douglas|title=How January Became a Dump Month for Cinema—and Why That's Changing|url=https://collider.com/january-dump-month-changing/|newspaper=Collider|date=January 20, 2022|access-date=July 7, 2022}}</ref>
But as the 2020 winter dump months were ending, the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world, and many exhibitors were forced to close, either by law or lack of demand, as patrons limited their activities outside of their homes to control the disease's spread. Studios and distributors reacted by postponing the release of highly anticipated tentpole films like ''A Quiet Place Part II'' and the James Bond film ''No Time to Die'' until such time as they could be screened in theaters.<ref name="The Week 2021 article">{{cite magazine|last=Lange|first=Jeva|title=For the movie industry, every month is January now|url=https://theweek.com/articles/958072/movie-industry-every-month-january-now|magazine=The Week|date=January 4, 2021|access-date=March 24, 2021}}</ref>
For the rest of 2020, "every month was January", ''The Week''{{'}}s Jeva Lange wrote. This meant more releases of low-budget independent films like ''Dick Johnson Is Dead'' on streaming services like Netflix where they got the attention of audiences that otherwise might have missed them. Films that would likely have been expensive failures on the big screen such as ''Wild Mountain Thyme'' were also released to home audiences during the year. While Lange saw this as perhaps hastening the transition away from what January had been, she wrote at the beginning of 2021 that "January is going to be January", noting that week's British release of ''Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway'' to critical condemnation.<ref name="The Week 2021 article" /> But later that year ''Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings'' set new records for a Labor Day weekend release.<ref name="Collider 2022 story" />
As the pandemic eased two years later, it appeared that some studios were picking up where they had left off in 2020 in reassessing their take on January releases. Sony / Columbia, for whom ''Bad Boys for Life'' had worked out so well, had scheduled ''Kraven the Hunter'' and ''Harold and the Purple Crayon'', two major projects, for January 2023 releases (although both films would later be delayed to October 2023 and June 2023 respectively). Universal as well has announced an unidentified tentpole project for January 2024 release.<ref name="Collider 2022 story" />
==Criticism==
Some observers have suggested that studios and distributors' insistence on seasonal patterns of release is counterproductive. In a 2015 ''New Yorker'' article, James Surowiecki suggested that the lack of moveigoers' interest during the dump months may result from audiences' lowered expectations rather than any external factors: "[I]f you release blockbusters in July and dogs in January, no wonder people go to the movies more often in July."<ref name="Surowiecki New Yorker piece">{{cite news|last=Surowiecki|first=James|author-link=James Surowiecki|title=rethinking the Seasonal Strategy|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/rethinking-seasonal-strategy|newspaper=The New Yorker|date=February 23, 2015|access-date=August 2, 2018}}</ref>
Surowiecki cited a 2002 study by Stanford economist Liran Einav, who analyzed 15 years of ticket sales and found that while there is indeed a seasonal fluctuation in demand, it is not significant enough to validate the prevalent patterns of release; instead it seemed to him that distributors are responding to "the observed pattern of sales and ''not'' ... the estimated underlying demand." The cyclical variations in revenue, he found, result primarily from the clustering of highly anticipated releases during winter holiday season and the summertime.<ref name="Einav paper">{{cite CiteSeerX |last=Einav|first=Liran|title=Seasonality and Competition in Time: An Empirical Analysis of Release-Date Decisions by the U.S. Motion Picture Industry |date=August 12, 2002|citeseerx=10.1.1.145.9507}}</ref>
A 2010 economic study of North American film release date patterns by two French economists, Manuel Cartier and Sébastien Liarte, agreed with Einav that the "temporal agglomeration" of potential blockbuster movies was not driven by realistic understanding of annual demand patterns. Instead, the authors came to believe that it was more socially driven, "normative mimicry whose end is to respect the beliefs, habits and norms of the [industry]." Exposing movies released at those times to films that could compete most effectively with them, they concluded, resulted in less overall profit for the studios than they might earn otherwise.<ref name="French temporal agglomeration paper">{{cite journal |last1=Cartier |first1=Manuel |last2=Liarte |first2=Sébastien |title=Market entry timing, uncertainty and temporal agglomeration: The case of the Hollywood cinema industry |journal=M@n@gement |year=2010 |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=70–98 |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/90f080a487c4207c836ab8b4305e9ee4/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=286201 |access-date=August 3, 2018 |location=Nantes |language=en, fr|doi=10.3917/mana.132.0070 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
Industry insiders do not disagree with this assessment; in 2013, Viacom's then-chief executive officer, Philippe Dauman, said publicly that the clustering of tentpole releases was keeping those films from making all the money they could if they were not in such close competition.<ref name="Surowiecki New Yorker piece" /> Ten years earlier, Tom Ortenberg, then head of distribution for Lionsgate Films, told ''The New York Times Magazine'' that "there is never a bad time to release a good film—and there is never a good time to release a bad film."<ref name="2003 NYT release date article">{{cite news|last=Rottenberg|first=Josh|title=The Imperfect Science of Release Dates|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/magazine/the-imperfect-science-of-release-dates.html|newspaper=The New York Times Magazine|date=November 9, 2003|access-date=August 3, 2018}}</ref>
But Surowiecki noted Cartier and Liarte's conclusions that social factors within the industry played a part in the continuation of the release cycles that result in the dump months, due to the many uncertainties involved in producing and distributing a major motion picture and studio executives' desire to avoid blame for a big-budget film's commercial failure. "If you open a blockbuster on Memorial Day and it fails, no one is going to blame you for your release strategy", Einav, who in his paper likened this phenomenon to the maxim on Wall Street that no one ever gets fired for recommending investors buy shares of IBM,<ref name="Einav 30n42">Einav, 30n42</ref> told him. "If you open a potential blockbuster in February and it fails you're going to be on the hook."<ref name="Surowiecki New Yorker piece" />
In 2013, John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), criticized the dump months (among several other studio practices) at CinemaCon, the annual gathering of film exhibitors hosted by NATO. The theaters had come off a first quarter where receipts had been down 12 percent from the first quarter of 2012. He faulted the studios for their insufficiently diverse offerings in 2013 as compared to the first quarter of the year before, which he connected to the dump-months phenomenon. "Any month can produce a $100 million movie," he said in his speech. "In 2012, distributors spread their movies over the calendar, and we had a record year."<ref name="Fithian speech" />
Responding later, in an indieWIRE panel discussion hosted by Anne Thompson, Universal Studios chairman Adam Fogelson agreed in principle with Fithian, saying "there are very few reasons other than historical behavior why almost any film can't work on almost any weekend ...". He pointed to the 2005 success of ''White Noise'' on the first weekend of January as having opened that time up to similar low-budget horror films.<ref name="Anne Thompson panel">{{cite news|last=Thompson|first=Anne|author-link=Anne Thompson (film critic)|title=CinemaCon Heavyweight Panel Debates Windows, Social Media, State of Industry|url=http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/cinemacon-heavyweight-panel-debates-windows-social-media-state-of-industry|newspaper=indieWIRE|date=April 26, 2013|access-date=January 1, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150419152157/http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/cinemacon-heavyweight-panel-debates-windows-social-media-state-of-industry|archive-date=April 19, 2015}}</ref>
However, he called the belief among some exhibitors that the theaters' slump was attributable to a plethora of R-rated films saved for January, a criticism repeated by Fithian, "simplistic." The problem was the movies in question, not their ratings. ''Django Unchained'', he insisted, would have been a hit regardless of the month it opened. "It happens to be about the movies," Fogelson said. "People tend to, if not forget, minimize how complicated this is."<ref name="Anne Thompson panel" />
Surowiecki credits another Universal executive, former distribution chief Nikki Rocco, for livening up the dump months. She, he wrote, believed that people would go see a movie at any time of year if it was good enough, and that that could make lesser movies hits if they came out at less competitive times of year. Not only did Rocco move apparent summer releases like 1999's ''The Mummy'' to the beginning of May, she also found success for the studio in August with ''The Bourne Ultimatum'' and scheduled ''Ride Along'', ''Identity Thief'' and ''Safe House'' for what wound up being successful runs following January release dates. Surowiecki compared her to Billy Beane, former general manager of Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics, who likewise found a way for a smaller, less wealthy team to compete at the highest levels by using analytics to identify undervalued assets.<ref name="Surowiecki New Yorker piece" />
==Releasing strategies==
Critics and movie fans have observed that studios and other distributors have leaned on particular types of movies, or particular genres, to get them through the dump months. Some of them overlap: * "'''Mediocre comedies'''", as Scott Meslow of ''The Atlantic'' puts it, referring to films like ''The Spy Next Door'', ''Tooth Fairy'', ''Bride Wars'', ''Hotel for Dogs'' and parody films of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer−particularly ''Date Movie'' and ''Meet the Spartans''−all of which had tepid critical receptions but did better than they might have at other times of year.<ref name="Atlantic post" /> In the 2010s, these films have been doing even better, with ''Paul Blart: Mall Cop'' and ''Identity Thief'' both vaulting past unimpressed critics to gross over $100 million; the former was the top-grossing January release for 12 years.<ref name="Box Office Mojo top January releases" /> * "'''Mediocre action movies'''". Meslow points to ''The Book of Eli'' and ''Underworld: Evolution'' as films that, like their comic counterparts, succeeded commercially due to their January release. In 2011, he adds, rescheduling ''The Green Hornet'' to January from its originally intended release the previous summer proved to be a very lucrative decision.<ref name="Atlantic post" /> A decade earlier, in a piece about his general complaints with August, ''Slate'' editor David Plotz included "egregious action movies" dominating movie screens during the month."<ref name="David Plotz piece">{{cite news|last=Plotz|first=David|author-link=David Plotz|title=August|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2001/07/august.html|newspaper=Slate|date=July 2001|access-date=January 2, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150929120014/http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2001/07/august.html|archive-date=September 29, 2015}}</ref> * '''Low-cost rereleases''': In 2011, Meslow recounts, Disney rereleased ''The Lion King'' in 3-D to test whether its core audience would be amenable to the format. The experiment wound up becoming the highest-grossing September release ever.<ref name="Box Office Mojo top September releases">{{cite web|title=Top Grossers for September, Indexed by Total Gross|url=https://boxofficemojo.com/monthly/?view=releasedate&chart=bymonth&month=9&sort=sumgross&order=DESC&p=.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2014|access-date=January 1, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905105928/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/monthly/?view=releasedate&chart=bymonth&month=9&sort=sumgross&order=DESC&p=.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref> It followed it up with ''Beauty and the Beast'' in 3-D, released the following January. George Lucas primed audiences for the ''Star Wars'' prequel trilogy by releasing the enhanced "Special Edition" of the original trilogy during the winter dump months, Meslow recalled.<ref name="Atlantic post" /> * '''Low budgets, generally''': ''Taken'' and ''Paul Blart<nowiki>'</nowiki>''s stars, Liam Neeson and Kevin James respectively, are not considered A-listers, bankable enough to open a major movie on the strength of their names alone. Therefore, Meslow writes, they work for lower salaries, which helps keep budgets low enough for the film to be profitable with a smaller potential audience amid minimal competition.<ref name="Atlantic post" /> * '''Teen-oriented movies'''. Since teenagers, "the demographic with an excess of idle time in January," are less interested in movies touted as potential Oscar winners than adults, Meslow reasons, studios make the effort to release films targeted to them. So, romantic films like ''She's All That'', ''10 Things I Hate About You'', ''Save the Last Dance'', ''The Butterfly Effect'', and ''A Walk to Remember'' have successfully opened in January.<ref name="Atlantic post" />
Not all films released in the dump months were originally intended for that period, however. Movies that failed to live up to studios' hopes for a competitive summer release often come out in the winter. ''Vegas Seven''{{'s}} Una LaMarche pointed at the beginning of 2013 to the then-upcoming ''Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters'' as such a film. "If [it] were any good," she wrote, "it would be coming out in June."<ref name="Vegas Seven article" /> It indeed fared poorly in the U.S., but better abroad.<ref name="Box Office Mojo Hansel & Gretel page">{{cite web|title=Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=hanselandgretelwitchhunters.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=April 24, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905100038/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=hanselandgretelwitchhunters.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref>
She also suspected that ''Broken City'', another upcoming release that starred Russell Crowe, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Mark Wahlberg, had been consigned to a January release due to adverse reactions from test audiences, and correctly anticipated the failure of the ensemble comedy ''Movie 43'' for the same reason.<ref name="Vegas Seven article" /> For his part, Meslow points to ''Season of the Witch'', a $40 million horror film starring Nicolas Cage which failed to recoup even that amount,<ref name="NYT mag article" /> and ''Untraceable'' as emblematic of that kind of big-budget bust buried during dump months.<ref name="Atlantic post" /> "The marketing plan for a film like this is often just a formal wake, the last stop before a film's reincarnation as generic product for the on-demand/DVD/streaming after-markets," says Burr in his ''Times Magazine'' piece.<ref name="NYT mag article" />
Others that were not originally intended for the dump months get shifted there anyway not because they are bad but because the studios cannot figure out how to market them or are not sure they will succeed. C. Robert Cargill, a former critic for Ain't It Cool News who scripted the successful 2012 horror film ''Sinister'', points to ''Chronicle'', which had a surprisingly strong opening on Super Bowl weekend earlier that year, an example.<ref name="Hollywood.com article" />
Similarly, LaMarche points to two other types of movies difficult to market to large audiences. "Winter can be a boon to little movies with niche audiences," she writes, pointing to Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut, ''Quartet'', which received a limited U.S. release in January 2013, and ''Struck by Lightning'', released at the same time. Movies that also blend genres or defy such categorization, such as the zombie–human ''Romeo and Juliet'' retelling, ''Warm Bodies'', or the limited-release Charlie Sheen comedy ''A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III'', are also ideal for their dump-months release time frame.<ref name="Vegas Seven article" />
===August===
''Guardians of the Galaxy'' had the most successful August opening weekend ever, until 2016's ''Suicide Squad''.<ref name="Box Office Mojo August opening weekends" /> It went on to become the highest grossing August release ever<ref name="BOM August releases">{{cite web|title=Box Office Mojo Monthly Results: August|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/monthly/?view=releasedate&chart=bymonth&month=8&sort=sumgross&order=DESC&p=.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|access-date=September 10, 2016}}</ref> as well as 2014's top-grossing film domestically.<ref name="Box Office Mojo 2014 top grosses" /> These accomplishments led industry observers to reconsider whether they should be so dismissive of August, a trend that had been building even before that year. Cary Carling noted afterwards in the ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram'' that recent Augusts had seen a number of critical and commercial successes, not only franchise movies such as ''The Bourne Ultimatum'' and ''Rise of the Planet of the Apes'' but films that appealed to adult audiences such as ''Blue Jasmine'', ''The Help'', and the James Brown biopic ''Get on Up'', whose $14 million opening weekend against ''Guardians'' "met expectations."<ref name="Star-Telegram August story" />
"[Is] the summer movie season ... expanding out from its traditional boundaries?" Jordan Smith asked before the month began on Hollywood.com. He noted that some big-budget movies released in the late spring and early summer of recent years, like ''After Earth'', ''White House Down'', ''R.I.P.D.'' and ''The Lone Ranger'', had struggled at the box office against similar competition. He believed a "point of saturation" had been reached, with too many of those movies being released in the early summer. But "audiences are proving that they'll line up at any time of the year to watch Captain America save the day."<ref name="Summer movie season over?" />
Dave Farger of Fandango.com believes moviegoers are already adapting. When a film like ''Guardians of the Galaxy'' comes out at the time of summer it does, "[it] feels like an event, regardless of the month." He sees it as similar to what has happened to the TV schedule, where both broadcast and cable networks have begun airing new scripted shows during the summer, which was once relegated to reruns due to small audiences.<ref name="Star-Telegram August story" />
Hopes for more success in late August are dependent, however, on new releases during the month. In 2017, with only two new studio films in wide release that August, the last weekend of the month yielded the worst box office results in 16 years, with all films taking in only $65 million, led by ''The Hitman's Bodyguard'', at $10.1 million in receipts, for the second straight week. Around $1.7 million of the total came from ''Wonder Woman'', rereleased to promote its upcoming home media debut.<ref name="USA Today August 2017 story" />
===Horror films===
One genre regularly mentioned in connection with the dump months is horror. Once a staple of the periods, yet frequently limited to them, recent successes during the dump months have actually led studios to reevaluate this scheduling limitation and release horror movies at other times of the year.<ref name="Complex October story" /><ref name="USA Today October 2013 story" /> "It seems this time of the year has become the 'other October.'" said Brian Salisbury of Hollywood.com at the end of February 2013.<ref name="Hollywood.com article" /> LaMarche attributes this to winter's "cold, dark landscape."<ref name="Vegas Seven article" /> thumb|left|Winter's dreariness may make audiences more amenable to horror films during that season's dump months.|alt=Gravestones on a cloudy and snowy day Critically praised and commercially successful horror films such as 2008's ''Cloverfield'', which had the best January opening weekend for six years until ''Ride Along'',<ref name="Box Office Mojo January opening weekends table">{{cite web|title=Top Opening Weekends by Month—January|url=https://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/month/?mo=01&p=.htm|website=Box Office Mojo|year=2014|access-date=March 12, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905111600/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/month/?mo=01&p=.htm|archive-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref> and 2013's January champion ''Mama'', have done well by the dump months. But other horror movies have still succeeded in the face of critical condemnation, starting with ''White Noise'' in 2005. As a result, "the only new release is usually one crappy horror movie," on the year's first weekend, says Will Goss of Film.com.<ref name="Hollywood.com article" />
In reviewing 2016's ''The Forest'', David Ehrlich of ''Slate'' took note of its release at that time of year. "[A]nybody with access to a calendar already knows that ''The Forest'' is bad," he wrote. "[A]t this point, that's less of a presumption than it is a tradition." In that vein, playing on the movie's Japanese setting, he likened it to the supposed ancient custom of ''ubasute'' in that country, by which elderly people who could no longer care for themselves were purposely abandoned on mountainsides.<ref name="Slate The Forest review">{{cite news|last=Ehrlich|first=David|title=The Forest|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2016/01/horror_movie_the_forest_starring_natalie_dormer_reviewed.html|newspaper=Slate|date=January 8, 2016|access-date=January 12, 2016}}</ref>
In 2012, ''The Devil Inside'', a low-budget found footage horror film following in the steps of ''Cloverfield'', opened the weekend after New Year's Day. Critics, for whom it had not been screened, reviewed it harshly if and when they did see it, and audiences reacted angrily to the film's abrupt ending, which directed them to a website for more information.<ref name="Slate Devil Inside ending article">{{cite web|last=Haglund|first=David|title=Does The Devil Inside Have the Worst Ending in Movie History?|url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/01/09/the_devil_inside_ending_is_it_the_worst_ever_and_why_do_people_hate_it_.html|website=Slate|date=January 9, 2012|access-date=January 3, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150928121858/http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/01/09/the_devil_inside_ending_is_it_the_worst_ever_and_why_do_people_hate_it_.html|archive-date=September 28, 2015 }}</ref> Yet, as Cargill notes, its success was proof that even on that low-potential weekend, a disengaged audience will "throw money at a terrible movie if it looks like it's good."<ref name="Hollywood.com article" /> The film's opening weekend take of $33.7 million ranks in the top ten for January.<ref name="Box Office Mojo January opening weekends table" /> ''The Devil Inside'' went on to make over $50 million domestically and almost that much abroad to break $100 million in total receipts.<ref name="Box Office Mojo Devil Inside summary" />
The success of both films outside of October, usually the month when studios released their quality horror films to capitalize on Halloween's approach, has actually led studios to rethink that approach and release horror films at other times of year. During the 2000s October, and the weekend before Halloween, had come to be dominated by the ''Saw'' and ''Paranormal Activity'' franchises. "You would never come up against them because you would be killed," recalls Rock Alvarez, producer of ''A Haunted House 2''.<ref name="USA Today October 2013 story" />
For that reason, ''Mama'' was rescheduled from October 2012 to the following January. In October 2013, Paramount decided to delay the release of ''Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones'' from the weekend before Halloween to March 2014, and replaced it not with another horror offering but the comedy ''Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa'', leaving the month with only one highly anticipated horror film, the third adaptation of Stephen King's ''Carrie''.<ref name="USA Today October 2013 story" />
Tiffany Smith of Fandango.com's House of Screams says studios are finding holidays with horror associations elsewhere in the year, like Friday the 13th, regardless of season. ''Insidious: Chapter 2'' had actually opened well on that weekend in September. "That weekend actually played as a bigger movie weekend than Halloween is this year," she told ''USA Today''. In July, ''The Conjuring'' had also done well amidst the summer movies. "A lot of people are moving [horror movies] everywhere," said ''Mama'' producer Guillermo del Toro.<ref name="USA Today October 2013 story" />
==Audience and critical responses==
Some movie critics have called on the studios to change their release schedules and improve the quality of new films during the dump months. Paul Shirey of JoBlo.com calls on the studios start releasing better films then. "Rather than saving them to win statues, why not put them out to reap some box office and fill an otherwise dead month with something worth seeing?"<ref name="JoBlo.com article" />
Ty Burr suggested that in January 2013 that no new movies should be released in January. Instead, "studios would have to rerelease their most underrated entertainments from the previous year for a second chance." He gave ''The Cabin in the Woods'' or ''Chronicle'', itself a January release in 2012, as examples of such films. Failing that happening, he wrote that he was using home media to catch up on older films.<ref name="NYT mag article" />
Other critics have tried to look for worthwhile, overlooked films amid the dump-months releases, which do exist, Vegas Seven's Una LaMarche assures readers.<ref name="Vegas Seven article" /> In January 2013, ''The Onion''{{'s}} ''A.V. Club'' compiled a list of such overlooked dump months films. It includes many that have since become cult classics, like the 1991 Kevin Bacon horror film ''Tremors'', 1999's ''Office Space'' and 2000's ''Boiler Room'', all released in late February. They also recommend the January 1993 release ''Matinee'', starring John Goodman as legendary gimmick-using film producer William Castle, and ''The Pledge'', a January 2001 film starring Jack Nicholson. "It is Sean Penn's best film as director, an uncompromising depiction of faith and devotion curdled into something monstrous."<ref name="AV Club article" />
One critic, Matt Singer of ''indieWIRE'', said in January 2013 that he has "started to look at January with anticipation rather than dread." He argues that even the month's bad movies are bad in their own way. Unlike failed summer blockbusters, which have "way too much money riding on [them] to be anything but mediocre and boring," January movies are often spectacular in their failure since the studios do not expect them to do well. "Why throw good money after bad?" he asks rhetorically. "Just cut your losses and let the thing really suck." Such benign neglect, he suggests, led to ''The Devil Inside'', "so intensely stupid it's almost brilliant—and entirely entertaining." He likened January movies to trainwrecks, while bad movies in June were more like "controlled demolitions."<ref name="Matt Singer indieWIRE piece">{{cite web|last=Singer|first=Matt|title=Why I Love Going to the Movies in January|url=http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/january-movies|publisher=indieWIRE|date=January 23, 2013|access-date=January 5, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140106040924/http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/january-movies|archive-date=January 6, 2014}}</ref> ''Cloverfield'', he asserted, had begun reversing the trend of forgettable January movies. In more recent years he had been impressed by ''The Grey'' and ''Mama.''<ref name="Matt Singer indieWIRE piece" />
"While it's easy to complain about a stretch of so-so movies," wrote Matt Patches at Hollywood.com as 2012 began, "the twist is we should really be ''thanking'' the studios for catering to niche audiences all month." For most viewers, it is a chance to catch up on the major awards contenders released in December. But studios and the filmgoers who have already seen those two films can benefit from creative risk-taking by filmmakers. He points to ''Cloverfield'' as one such gamble that succeeded. Smaller film distributors also take advantage of the dump months to bring little-seen but highly praised films like ''Kill List'' to wider audiences via home-media releases.<ref name="January 2012 Hollywood.com post">{{cite news|last=Patches|first=Matt|title=MindFood: Why January Is the Year's Best Month for Movies|url=http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies/12851710/mindfood-why-january-is-the-year-s-best-month-for-movies|work=Hollywood.com|date=January 4, 2012|access-date=January 7, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140107065209/http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies/12851710/mindfood-why-january-is-the-year-s-best-month-for-movies|archive-date=January 7, 2014}}</ref>
Scott Mendelson at ''Forbes'' said in January 2014 that only critics in large markets have reason to complain during the dump months. "For the rest" he claimed "January is in fact a deluge of high quality movies" owing to the combination of awards contenders reaching the mass market for the first time, the possibility for unusual successes among the new releases, and overlooked films from the previous year reaching home markets. In that last category, he highly recommended the August 2013 release ''Short Term 12''.<ref name="Forbes January 2014 post">{{cite news|last=Mendelson|first=Scott|title=January Is Only The Worst Month For Film If You're A Critic|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/01/02/why-january-really-isnt-the-worst-month-for-movies/|work=Forbes|date=January 2, 2014|access-date=January 7, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140313022819/http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/01/02/why-january-really-isnt-the-worst-month-for-movies/|archive-date=March 13, 2014}}</ref>
==In other markets==
Until 2010, the Chinese film industry also experienced sluggish domestic ticket sales during January and February, when that country celebrates the traditional New Year, or today the Spring Festival. That year, James Cameron's ''Avatar'' earned US$16 million in one week during that period, leading Chinese filmmakers to reconsider whether audiences were as disinterested in going to theaters at that time of year than they had long believed. They began to make movies that might succeed during this period, realizing that the country's recent economic growth had given people more leisure time.<ref name="LAT Chinese New Year story">{{cite news|last=Fan|first=Kemeng|title=China's box office sets record during Spring Festival|url=https://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-china-box-office-new-year-20180222-story.html|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=February 22, 2018|access-date=August 1, 2018}}</ref>
Since then, that period has become more profitable. Most of the successful films have been domestic productions—no Hollywood production has been released in China during the Spring Festival since ''Frozen'' in 2014. A Chinese critic told the ''Los Angeles Times'' that she believes Hollywood deliberately refrains from releasing its major films in her country during this time since they now know the market will be saturated with high-profile domestic films, much as China itself informally excludes foreign-made films from the summer months.<ref name="LAT Chinese New Year story" />
In February 2018 the Spring Festival period set new box office records for China. It had its highest-grossing week ever, at {{CNY|5.65 billion|link=yes}} (US$890 million); its highest single-day gross (US$200 million), and its highest attendance ever, with 30 million going to theaters at some point during the week in mid-month. ''Monster Hunt 2'' set the country's opening weekend record with receipts of {{CNY|550 million}} (US$86 million).<ref name="LAT Chinese New Year story" />
==See also== {{Portal|Film|Linguistics}} * Bounded rationality, constraint on decision-making that may be one of the reasons for the persistence of the dump months * Friday night death slot, the equivalent to the dump months on the American weekly television schedule {{clear}}
== Explanatory notes == {{Notelist}}
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
==External links== {{wiktionary}} * {{wikiquote-inline|January#Film "dump month"|Dump months}}
Category:Film and video terminology Category:Winter in culture Category:August Category:September Category:Pejorative terms Category:January Category:February Category:Months