11:59AM, Oct 23, 2008
With each summer full of more blockbusters than the year before, it's little wonder winter is fast becoming the new tentpole territory. Elliott Noble takes a look at the shifting schedules...
Before 1975, there were no real seasons in the film calendar. Sure, studios tended to release better quality offerings towards the end of the year in a bid to attract Oscar’s attention. They still do. But the concept of the ‘Summer blockbuster’ didn’t exist.
Then along came Jaws and the stampede began. Suddenly everyone wanted to bring out their box office big guns when the streets were full of bored schoolkids and adults desperate to cool their sunburnt skins.
Thus was born the ‘tentpole movie’, the golden goose on whose box office performance Hollywood’s caffeine-fuelled marketing departments depended. Planned with military precision, release dates became a matter of financial life and death.
The annual battle for box office supremacy continues to produce many casualties, most of them instantly forgotten. But to summer’s victors, the spoils guaranteed not only in dollars, but immortality.
Star Wars and Grease blitzed the late 70s, Ghostbusters and Batman stormed the 80s, and The Lion King and Independence Day saw off all-comers in the 90s.
But when the mood takes him, nobody could argue against the summer belonging to Spielberg. Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Jurassic Park, Minority Report, War of the Worlds – all released in June , all unstoppable at the box office. Even 1998’s less-than-sunny Saving Private Ryan passed $200m with a July opening.
In 1997, however, summer’s domination hit an iceberg. Released in December, Titanic swept its way to the top of the all-time box office list and has never been shifted.
It began to dawn on the studios that people don’t like being outside when it’s cold and wet. And what better way to unwind after fighting off fellow Christmas shoppers than watching a similar mob fighting to hang on to a sinking ship?
While May always heralds the arrival of the next batch of big-budget popcorn flicks (or Werther’s Originals as far as this year’s return of Indiana Jones is concerned), many money-spinners are held back for the winter months.
Broadly speaking, summer is now the domain of comic-based (or simply comic) sequel-spawners like Spider-Man, Shrek and Pirates of the Caribbean, while literary and long-standing franchises - Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, James Bond – come out when Jack Frost is nipping at our noses.
In America, the festive season begins in November with the run-up to the Thanksgiving weekend. This used to be Pixar’s release date of choice (A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, The Incredibles), though the animation powerhouse is now strong enough to hold its own with the big boys of summer (see Ratatouille and Wall-E for details).
Some movies go the other way. Bond used to be active in summer but now plies his trade as the days die earlier.
And yet others hedge their bets. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was perfect Christmas fayre, but the second visit to Narnia was shifted to June. Prince Caspian evidently doesn’t have the belly for a fight with Harry Potter this winter.
But with DVD business now outstripping theatrical revenue, release dates are becoming irrelevant. Furthermore, advances in technology mean that home viewing is rapidly approaching the silver-screen experience.
Come the summer, though, isn’t it nice to know that each week offers the opportunity to watch another big, hot blockbuster in a nice, cool cinema? After all, no matter how bad it might be, at least your ice cream won’t melt.
