Movies: they’re like if pictures could move.\h Movies are the backbone of culture: in fact,\h\h
the movies are the #1 way that people watch\h Anne Hathaway cry. But did you know that\h\h
movies can be bad? It’s true. And did you know\h that those bad movies are often concentrated in\h\h
very specific calendar windows? Well I sure\h hope not, because then this video is gonna\h\h
bomb worse than a movie released in February. In order to understand when bad movies come out,\h\h
we first have to understand when good movies come\h out: summer and the holiday season. The summer\h\h
blockbuster was invented in the mid 1970s, when\h Jaws, released June 20th, 1975, became the highest\h\h
grossing movie of all time, only to be surpassed\h two year later by Star Wars, released May 25,\h\h
1977. Studios soon started releasing their\h biggest, loudest, crowd-pleasiest movies in\h\h
early summer, taking advantage of kids being off\h school, adults taking vacations, and the heat\h\h
making everyone pretty interested in sitting in\h a big air conditioned room for 90 minutes or so.\h
The holidays are arguably an even\h better time to release a movie.\h\h
Like summer, people have time off from work,\h and kids have time off from school––plus,\h\h
people are often looking for something their whole\h family can do together, and going to a movie is a\h\h
great way to get your aunt to stop recruiting you\h to a multi-level marketing scheme for a few hours.\h\h
Another huge factor is that the cutoff for\h Academy Award eligibility is the end of the year,\h\h
so movies hoping to make an awards play often\h release just before voting starts, in the hopes\h\h
that recency bias will make them more likely to\h score a nomination. That’s why you see so many big\h\h
tentpole and prestige movies come out starting\h around Thanksgiving and going into December:\h\h
just look at all the massive IP-fests and\h Oscar-baits getting released over the coming\h\h
holidays. Netflix is even getting in on the\h action, putting out a movie starring five\h\h
Oscar winners and one Oscar-nominated twink. So now that we’ve talked about good movies,\h\h
let’s talk about bad movies. January and February\h are what are known as dump months: the months with\h\h
the worst movies. But why? Why does the start\h of the year mean our movie screens are suddenly\h\h
bombarded with dirty grandpas and purposeful dogs? Well, first off, there’s the box office: from 2002\h\h
to 2012, the average box office for a January\h release was less than a third of what it was\h\h
for a December release. There are several reasons\h for that: first off, theatres are still playing\h\h
all the big holiday releases, and it’s hard for\h new January movies to compete with massive IP\h\h
tentpoles, as moviegoers are mostly just going\h to see Lego Titanic 3: Into the Shang-Chi-Verse\h\h
for the fifth time. Second, Oscar nominations come\h out in early February, and when they do, all the\h\h
cinephiles focus on watching all the nominees\h before the Oscars, not watching new February\h\h
releases. And there are a mess of other factors:\h people have less disposable income coming off the\h\h
holidays, winter weather can make it unpleasant\h to travel to the theatre, and there’s the issue\h\h
of the Super Bowl: it’s always the first Sunday\h in February, and it pushes the public’s attention\h\h
away from actors fake beating each other up and\h towards athletes actually beating each other up.\h\h
The two highest grossing movies to premiere Super\h Bowl weekend are Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus:\h\h
Best of Both Worlds Concert, and Dear John,\h two movies aimed at female audiences due\h\h
to the gender gap in football viewership. But all of that explains why people don’t\h\h
see movies released in January and February.\h The question remains: why are the movies bad?\h\h
Because they are bad: Rotten Tomatoes found that\h the average February movie has a 43% lower score\h\h
than the average November movie. Well here’s\h a little secret: thanks to test screenings,\h\h
studios usually know if their movies suck\h before they get released. But the thing is,\h\h
they’re still contractually obligated to give most\h of those movies a theatrical release. So, they\h\h
intentionally dump their bad movies in January and\h February because they want to save the good summer\h\h
and holiday release dates for better and/or IP-ier\h movies. In part, this lets the studio offload\h\h
garbage movies while fulfilling their contractual\h obligations, but it also can help mediocre movies\h\h
occasionally make a profit, because what they lack\h in not sucking, they’ll sometimes make up for in\h\h
being basically the only new thing in theatres. But movies that come out in January and February\h\h
aren’t always bad––sometimes, they’re just\h targeted. Older audiences, for example,\h\h
are somewhat reliable January and February\h theatregoers, as they typically have savings\h\h
that weren’t blown out by the holidays and are\h often retirees, so they don’t have to return to\h\h
work. That’s why Clint Eastwood movies often\h release early in the year and do well––the\h\h
highest grossing January release is by far the\h Eastwood-directed American Sniper, because if\h\h
there’s one thing old people love, it’s military\h propaganda directed by an 84-year-old former\h\h
pretend cowboy. Genre movies are also a staple\h in these months, especially horror films, which\h\h
are usually low-budget and come with a reliable\h niche audience of thrill-seekers and teenagers\h\h
with fake IDs. It’s no coincidence that the two\h most notable dump month Oscar winners––Get Out\h\h
and Silence of the Lambs––are both horror films. There’s also a second, slightly less intense dump\h\h
period in late August and early September, when\h school is starting back up, summer blockbusters\h\h
are still in theatres, and people have less\h spending money thanks to recent vacation spending,\h\h
back to school shopping, and seasonal summer\h jobs ending. Labor Day is famously the worst\h\h
holiday weekend at the US box office, as families\h are often too busy squeezing in a final vacation\h\h
or settling into school routines to go watch\h Christopher Walken do cultural appropriation.\h
In recent years, though, studios have started\h to question if the dump month mindset is a\h\h
self-fulfilling prophecy––maybe the January box\h office mostly sucks because the studios ensure\h\h
that January movies mostly suck. Marvel, notably,\h has started innovating within the schedule,\h\h
releasing Black Panther in February, which buoyed\h the month’s 2018 box office returns to almost even\h\h
with December, and shattering records by releasing\h Shang-Chi on Labor Day weekend––suggesting that\h\h
perhaps there’s a solution to this decades long\h dump month problem so crazy it just might work:\h\h
release movies that people actually want to see. But you know what people don’t want to see? Empty,\h\h
white walls, but finding artwork, getting\h it framed, mounting it––it’s time-consuming,\h\h
expensive, and destructive to your walls. Displate\h has a better way: they have over a million\h\h
different artworks from independent artists,\h which are printed on these elegant metal posters.\h\h
Then, you apply this protective leaf to\h your wall, stick the magnet on top of that,\h\h
then the poster just snaps on and it’s super\h easy to adjust. Including measuring and stuff,\h\h
I installed these two posters in just a few\h minutes. We got a bunch of Displates to fill\h\h
out some empty wall-space in our office, and love\h both the designs and the quality of the prints.\h\h
So, look around you––if you see empty wall-space,\h put a Displate there. Until December 5th, it’s\h\h
even easier to get started as their extended black\h Friday sale, which you can get to by clicking the\h\h
button on-screen or in the description, gets\h you up to 42% off, and the company even plants\h\h
a tree for each piece you purchase, so head\h over there and find your new artwork today.