Autumn in the air
August 29, 2008

Labor Day. The kids go back to school and, any minute, the Halloween costumes will replace the backpacks and lunch boxes in Target—if they haven’t already. September is really just a transition month between summer and the fall holidays, or, as the time period is less poetically known in business, “the fourth quarter.”

Everyone recognizes the signs of the season. For consumers, it may be apparent in the seasonal displays at retail. For retailers, it’s the nailing down of DVD release dates for summer blockbusters.

The past week has brought
confirmation on two of the six $200 million-plus titles due in the quarter, Disney’s WALL-E and Sony’s Hancock.

The two earliest entries were previously announced: Paramount’s Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Two are still to be confirmed: DreamWorks’ and Paramount’s Kung Fu Panda and Warner’s The Dark Knight, though retailers expect them on Nov. 11 and Dec. 9, respectively. It likely won’t be too long until their release dates are made official, given the end of the summer movie season and the fact that Dark Knight is poised to cruise past $500 million in U.S. receipts.

While the fact that release dates often are not carved in stone these days until after prebook can be inconvenient for retailers, it is as much a function of the studio’s relations with theaters and producers as it is their desire to find the optimum release date—one with lots of shoppers and little competition.

Retailers will no doubt plan their biggest promotions around these six titles, though there are lots of (relatively) smaller hits and late-summer entries still to join the fourth-quarter lineup.

Now that summer’s over, from the standpoint of business, if not the calendar, watch for Universal’s Mamma Mia!, Hellboy 2, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Wanted; Warner’s Get Smart, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl and maybe Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2; Sony’s Pineapple Express; Paramount’s Tropic Thunder and Fox’s The X-Files: I Want to Believe.

With many of the studios feeling it is possible to better last year’s total DVD sales, they aren’t going to leave anything out of the fourth quarter.

Posted by Marcy Magiera on August 29, 2008 | Comments (0)