The Art of Calendar Gentrification: Early May
Posted by Ethan on Friday, April 30, 2010 in Market Analysis • (0) Comments • Permalink •
“Iron Man 2” is expected to generate one of the biggest openings of all time – without a holiday to boost its grosses. Nowadays, the first weekend in May is a holiday in itself, celebrating the start of the summer movie season, when Hollywood rolls out its hyped-to-the-max blockbusters. It didn’t used to be this way. Once upon a time, summer began on Memorial Day weekend.
But one flying cow changed everything.
Early May was seen as an extension of April – a studio dumping ground. Yet as studios produced more blockbusters, they couldn’t all fit inside the golden eight-week period of June and July. (August used to be another dumping ground) It made sense to push big releases to early May. You could be the first film out of the gate, facing a wide-open playing field and an audience desperate for entertainment. For a decade and a half, Hollywood has used early May as a launching pad for tentpoles with enormous success. Record-breaking openings. Beloved franchises. Two best picture Oscar-winners. Let’s look at how early May became the most profitable weekend of the year.
Warner Bros. took a chance in 1996 and positioned “Twister” to open May 10, two weeks before “Mission: Impossible.” The move paid off, and then some. “Twister” opened to $41.1M, a record for a non-summer debut. The next weekend, it dipped a slight 10% and banked $100M by Memorial Day weekend. It ended with $241.7M, over $60M more than “Mission.” Two years later, Paramount scheduled “Deep Impact” on the same weekend and inched past “Twister”’s record with $41.2M. Both films took advantage of a moribund box office; no other films grossed more than $5M. “Impact” wanted to get in front of “Godzilla,” which had been riding a tsunami of hype into its Memorial Day slot. In the end, the comet beat the lizard $140.4M vs. $136.1M.
In 1999, Universal followed the trend with “The Mummy,” but moved the release up to the first Friday, May 7, rather than the second like its predecessors. “The Phantom Menace” was opening the weekend before Memorial Day, so the Brendan Fraser film only had two weeks of marketplace dominance. It debuted even higher with $43.4M and made it to $155.2M, spawning two sequels. The date stuck, too: summer began the first Friday in May.
Early May was not just for popcorn films. Dreamworks released R-rated action-drama “Gladiator” May 5, 2000, three weeks before “Mission: Impossible 2.” The film opened smaller with $34.8M, but rode stellar word-of-mouth to $187.7M. “Gladiator” catapulted Russell Crowe to the A-list and won the best picture Oscar, the first summer film to do so since “Braveheart.”
“The Mummy Returns” debuted with a jaw-dropping $68.1M in 2001, but the following year, records were completely shattered. On May 3, 2002, “Spider-Man” swung into theaters and earned $114.8M in its first weekend. It was easily the hugest opening ever and the first film to break $100M in a single weekend. The performance redefined the heights a single movie could climb and ushered in the comic book movie era we’re living in today. When “Attack of the Clones” entered theaters two weeks later, Spidey didn’t blink. The “Star Wars” prequel opened to $80M, lackluster in comparison. “Spider-Man” beat “Clones” by over $100M. For the first time, a “Star Wars” movie was not the #1 film of its year. From then on, Hollywood considered early May as powerful as Memorial Day.
Throughout the decade, the weekend churned out blockbusters, but some couldn’t live up to the increased expectations. “Van Helsing” and “Mission: Impossible 3” underwhelmed with $51.7M and $47.7M. “Kingdom of Heaven” in 2005 was an outright flop with a meager $19.6M debut. It closed with $47.6M, about what “Spider-Man” made on its first Saturday. “Kingdom” was outgrossed by the independent film which opened against it in third place: “Crash.”
Recently, the weekend returned to its former glory with “Spider-Man 3” and “Iron Man” earning over $300M apiece. Fox pushed the summer movie season to new limits last year by opening “Wolverine” on May 1. Will summer soon begin in April? Just as the lines between network and cable television have blurred, so have the traditional blockbuster seasons. “Alice in Wonderland” and “300” proved there is money to be made year-round. Every day can be like early May.
--Philip Siegel