New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

American audiences will continue watching their blockbusters - their Dark Knight Rises and Amazing Spider-Mans - so I don’t mean to suggest that box office will noticeably suffer from longer summer seasons. But opening The Hunger Games on March 23rd and calling it a summer blockbuster is ludicrously incorrect. March 23rd is mere hours away from being a winter day, people!

Because we’re talking about “hipness” here - we all have our own definitions, really - December wins the category. For now, January is a wasteland, so I wouldn’t expect December’s box office season to stretch too far past the new year. On the flipside, franchises like Harry Potter and Twilight have made major headway in November. So much so that Puss in Boots, Happy Feet 2 and The Muppets will try to replicate their successes a few months from now. Some might even argue that the season begins even earlier than that - at the end of October, to include the Paranormal Activities and Saws (and, even bigger, the latest Jackass).

Whatever the case may be, I like the compactness to the season. (By the way, what are we calling it? The December season? Winter? Christmastime?) It’s a month and a half to two months, and then that’s it. Show’s over, wrap up the gear and let’s get the eff out.

Surely the summer season owns 17 of the top 20 biggest three-day weekends of all time. No one here can question the power in Americans - out of school teens, especially - wanting to escape the hot heat by hiding in a movie theater for a couple hours. Yet ‘round the halls of BOP, David Mumpower champions that the best stretch of box office actually begins in late December before bleeding into January a couple days. He says:

“For those of you new to the process, the time frame of the week before Christmas to the third day of January is the most lucrative box office period on the calendar. The end result of this is that most films will experience daily revenue on a par with a Friday, sometimes even a Saturday. So, we are looking at a 12-day period wherein all films in release experience a run of a dozen consecutive Fridays, give or take a bit. This is a blueprint example of a rising tide lifting all boats.”

If the summer and December seasons were personified a bit, December would continue doing what it does best: remaining indifferent. It wouldn’t humble itself or even gloat about Mumpower’s argument by hanging it over summer’s head. If the shoe was on the other foot, though, you know summer would be trumpeting nonstop about how it has the year’s most profitable stretch. It’s just in its loud and abrasive character to do so.

This column took a weird turn somewhere.

The December season, then, oozes cool by restricting its number of weekends to something less than summer - kinda like a musical or drama running as a limited engagement at the theater. Restrictions heighten demand, and maybe, in a very odd way, that’s how December releases can sometimes be so freakin’ leggy. (See Avatar’s final domestic tally, or its amazing 1.83% drop from week one to week two - even though it played in about the same number of theaters).

At the same time, according to the Word of Mumpower, the December season’s got something - 12 days of box office - that the summer season doesn’t have. And I don’t know that this will change if summer continues growing.

(And in case you couldn’t tell, Logan Square would get my vote, too).

Continued:       1       2