May-November relationship
March 10, 2008

The cover story in today's weekly version of our sister pub, Variety, has huge implications for the fourth quarter home entertainment business.

Headlined "May Day!," the piece by Pamel McClintock recaps the growing competitiveness at the box-office in May, which is now the official start of "summer" at the movies. She points out that last year b.o. pundits predicted big trouble because three tentpoles were skedded for May--Spider-Man3, Shrek the Third and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. But it turns out they were wrong and each pic grossed more than $110 million in its opening weekend and eventually, more than $300 million domestically. 

Fast forward a year and May 2008 bears four tentpoles (Iron Man, Speed Racer, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of theCrystal Skull), plus five other wide releases (Sex and the City, What Happens in Vegas, Made of Honor, Midnight Meat Train and The Strangers), and 14 specialty pics for a total of 23 films in 31 days.

(You can read a somewhat similar take, though not the exact same story, on Variety.com.)

Look ahead six more months and it doesn't take much imagination to see the "summer" multiplex pileup replicated at retail.

This is from McClintock's story, with my translation for the DVD biz:

"This May November sets the tone for the most brutal season ever, one dominated by event pics and a glut of comedies. In all, there are 25 potentially "big" movies DVD releases this summer, a significant jump from the 18 last year. At that level, marketing is going to have to be noisier and more crafty than ever.
Almost every weekend Tuesday has at least two major releases, along with the usual sprinkling of genre pics. Things don't quiet down much until mid-August December."

Consider that the summer moviegoing season spans about 3 1/2 monts from May to mid-August, but the Q4 DVD business packs most of its punch in only about 2 1/2 months from October to mid-December, and things get even more claustrophobic.

More translation:
"It's a question National Assn. of Theaters prexy John Fithian  [insert any retailer] thinks about a lot. He's in favor of making the release calendar more uniform throughout the year, versus jamming nearly all the popcorn movies into summer Q4. ... 'I've had this conversaion multiple times with top studio distribution video execs, begging them to do something about it, like put one of these pictures in April February,' Fithian [any retailer] says."

But no one wants to be the first to take such a risk.

Posted by Marcy Magiera on March 10, 2008 | Comments (0)