Dump months: A Uniquely American Phenomenon
January has frequently been pegged as a depressing month. Adults go back to work, kids go back to school, and movies seemingly go back to being poorly made trash. Nevertheless, why is it apparently at the start of the year when studios seem content to push releases under the rug - and why is it so bad particularly in America?
There is a six week period between late August and September which can also be considered a dumping ground; but the winter months remain notoriously dry. Although there is a combination of factors at play, the largest is the contiguous awards season marked at the start and end by the two most prominent awards ceremonies: the Golden Globes, conducted at the beginning of January and the Oscars which tail off the season. The films released in this period are still eligible for awards. However, they must instead wait until the following year, twelve months on – by that time voters and the general public probably do not care or have forgotten about these films – while the studio is still able to drop a feature in the race without any monetary campaign to fire it to a nomination.
Due to the oversaturated nature of award ceremonies near the start of the year in the US, the American release calendar has an immense number of releases studios deem most likely to win awards, something that might be more colloquially and perhaps less forgivingly is referred to as ‘Oscar-bait’. In October 2019, the releases of The Lighthouse, Parasite, Dolemite is My Name, Pain & Glory and Jojo Rabbit were all perfectly timed to be in the mind’s eye of prospective Academy members at the voting period - along with an even more extensive roster – including limited NETFLIX releases of Marriage Story and The Irishman in November and into December. This is a cinephile’s dream, even if there is often a vapid couple of months afterwards.
One might ask if a studio thinks a film is doomed to failure, why bother releasing it at all? The reasons are mostly unavoidable for studios as they are often contractually obligated - either with investors or stars to ensure their films do not get consigned to the metaphorical bargain bucket of video on demand. Another reason is having signed deals with streaming services or sometimes television networks to allow them to show the film at a predetermined date,which makes it affordable to drop the films into the cinemas, and if included in the contract, they may have to. However, they are safe in the knowledge that even if it is a failure they have a safety net of money the platform paid to distribute it.
A good example is Warner Bros’ romcom Isn’t It Romantic. The budget of over $30 million was relatively high for a romcom, and by permitting NETFLIX to distribute the film internationally, a short amount of time after initial theatrical release, they could ensure that chances of a loss were minimised even if it did not make back the budget in cinemas. As it turned out, the film made around $20 million more than its budget theatrically, which would have just been sufficient for a small profit after marketing costs, but the fallback of NETFLIX proved a successful endeavour.
Outside of the US though, things are different. In the UK for example, January and February are stocked with award season releases. To illustrate this point, Parasite and The Lighthouse are opening within a week of each other between January and February, along with Tom Hanks’ vehicle A Beautiful Day, In The Neighbourhood and Portrait of a Lady on Fire in each month respectively – all far later than their US release dates. This is due to the award ceremonies outside of the US being far less prestigious and because the BAFTAs, the leading British awards ceremony, have to be more flexible with their deadlines in order to keep up with its bigger American siblings. Therefore, studios can time their releases to coincide with awards season to maximise public interest and subsequently profits months after their original releases.
Consequently, there are very few spaces without any new films at all in the UK, even if in these early months releases are often limited. Due to the nature of film distribution, this is further compounded by the fact that a single film can be distributed by several companies in different countries and thus can often mean little international consistency and concurrency. In other countries, for example Eastern European countries, English-language award shows are less important to the average Joe, so award contenders are often released there before many other significant territories that host award ceremonies.
Other factors are also at play, including the likelihood of severe weather such as snowstorms occurring. This is also common in North America with many states affected yearly. Since the US is by far the most significant movie market, US studios are more tentative about releasing more notable films around these times of the year. As time goes on and frequency of freak weather becomes usual due to climate change, this is likely to become more prominent worldwide, and we may start to see studios’ attempts to play even safer and only release predicted bombs in these months.