It’s Time For Movie Studios To Take Back January - Opinion
From Shane Conto
What do you think of when you think of January? A New Year with all kinds of possibilities. A cold and dreary time weather wise. For all your football fans, it is the most exciting time of the year. But what about us movie fans? We get to have fun with the dregs of the release calendar. Outside of wider releases for Oscar hopefuls and International films finally reaching the States, it is a bad time to release a movie. Red Letter Media said it best… “F*** you! It’s January” and “Endless trash!”. Usually we get the worst films from studios who treat this month like a dumping ground.
But why? Maybe their thought was they didn’t want to drop quality films that might get steamrolled by the holiday films. Star Wars certainly did this over the past decade when they dropped in December. Those big tentpole films can ripple all throughout January. But something has changed. Those films are not hitting like they used to. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (a sequel to a billion dollar December release) made a small fraction of the money. Wonka is ruling the early weeks of January with less than $20 million grosses. There is certainly room to deliver some big money in January if the right effort is put in.
How do we know? Ask Blumhouse and Atomic Monster (now a singular studio entity). M3GAN roared into the first weekend of January last year with $30 million opening weekend. This is not a giant opening but that is a strong one for a low budget horror film. Generally, audiences and critics had a blast with the film as well. They tried to replicate this success again with Night Swim this year but the buzz and quality just wasn’t there. But this is a strong blueprint for what studios can accomplish during the first weekends of the calendar year. There are other films that have made splashes in the month of January. Most notably, American Sniper absolutely exploded in its wide release after a “limited” release. Hundreds of millions of dollars later, Clint Eastwood had a monster January hit. Sequels can make an impact as well with the long gestating Bad Boys for Life racking up $62 million its opening weekend. There have been quite a few films that hit a nice $40 million opening and that is nothing to be ashamed about if you make a film for a modest budget.
Why might it be essential for studios to start going in this direction? There are WAY too many movies getting released nowadays. There are plenty of studios (despite past and potential mergers) and they have whole schedules of dozens of movies each year. You would be shocked to find out that there are thousands of films that get released each year. Obviously, they do not all get wide releases or even releases outside of Los Angeles and New York but there are at least a few national releases every single week at this point. Those films need to spread out. Summer movie season is now starting in April and that means other films need to film new landing points. Why not January? The market is no longer going to make every studio release over $100 million so it is time for studios to invest in mid-sized and smaller films that can make a nice bit of money.
What is the biggest selling point to start releasing bigger films in January? The weather (as stated before) is absolutely terrible. What is a perfect thing to do when the weather is terrible? Go to the movies! This seems so odd that studios have not invested more in the winter months when going to a movie theater is an ideal choice compared to many other options. Especially if families are trying to find some fun things to do with the kids, studios can capitalize on this by focusing on some more kid centric content. A perfect example was the dead space for family oriented releases that occurred at the beginning of 2023. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish released in December 2022 and was met with no other wide release animated films for families until APRIL. Yes… APRIL. Kung Fu Panda 3 proved to be a good example of a family oriented animated film making a good January debut.
Will we be seeing more gambles of big releases in January? The horror market is already making its plays with M3GAN 2.0 making its arrival in cinemas that first weekend of 2025. But studios will need to rethink a lot especially with so many films getting pushed around due to COVID and the recent strikes. All it takes is a few good January releases and we might find ourselves with a whole new perspective on the first month of the year.
