DEC. 4 | PHYSICAL: The fourth quarter will seep into 2010, as studios release bigger titles than last year in hopes of appealing to consumers with new Blu-ray Disc players and gift cards to spend.
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is one of two $100 million-plus titles streeting in the first quarter, on Jan. 5.
Retailers believe the upcoming titles, including the Dec. 29 trio of 9, Jennifer’s Body and Paranormal Activity, all with young male appeal, plus Jan. 5 releases The Final Destination and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, will help prolong the bustling holiday shopping season. Early next year presents a particularly strong opportunity for Blu-ray Disc purchasing, with new Blu-ray hardware flooding people’s homes over Black Friday. Many consumer electronics stores note that Blu-ray player sales doubled during that weekend over the comparable 2008 period.
“There is going to be a lot of traffic with people looking for titles to play on their new devices and clearly you want to be positioned with new titles,” said Marc Rashba, VP of worldwide marketing for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, which will release Cloudy. “In our mindset, the fourth quarter represents a great opportunity going all the way through to January and early Easter.”
Studios have long streeted hit titles in late December/January, but historically it has been a hot release here and there. But this year appears to feature a larger load of hits than last year. Looking at Dec. 29 through Jan. 12, 2010, studios will usher in titles with approximately $465 million in attached box office, according to store sources. That represents a spike from the approximately $400 million generated from titles streeting during the comparable three-week frame in 2008.
Two movies, Paramount’s Paranormal Activity and Sony’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, top the $100 million mark at $107 million and $120 million, respectively. Last year, no late-December/early-January film reached that benchmark.
“We need to focus on more than just the holidays,” said Ted Engen, president of the Video Buyers Group. “You don’t want to take until the next holiday season to get the momentum going again. You don’t want to fade away after having all these titles at Christmas.”
Sony has purposefully created a robust slate for this so-called ‘fifth quarter.’ Along with Cloudy, the studio will additionally street Michael Jackson’s This Is It on Jan. 26.
Some retailers wish studios would be even more forthcoming with first-quarter slates. Coinciding with winter, this can be the perfect time of year for people to hunker down inside to watch movies.
“Everything always gets so crammed in the fourth quarter, and by January you are sitting around saying, ‘Oh, what do I have coming out?’” said National Entertainment Group Buying president Todd Zaganiacz. “There’s the cold weather, and you’re looking for releases to drive people into stores.”
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