You know, the "Summer movies" used to be June/July. Ever since the first X-Men opened in late May everyone has added that month to the Summer Movies line-up. Frankly, I think its too early still, and studios fighting for early may slots for their summer catch are making an error. Everyone is still in school, weather isn't warm, no one is on vacation yet. Its not summer. Period.

I still think late May will pick up by the way. I just want to ask a question. How do these recent two weekends truly line up to early May releases over the past decade? Summer movie terminology aside. They're probably performing as expected for this actual time of year. I don't know for sure though...I'm asking someone who does. It just seem everyon has summer expectations already, when its nowhere near that season either literally or b.o. wise.

Summer officially starts during the third weekend in May. It happened last year, the year before (though the first two weekends in May 2004 were still solid), and it's happening again. The third weekend is a hot spot.

In May 2004, it was all fine, Zing. Van Helsing delivered a good opening for the kind of a movie it was. Later in the summer, I doubt it'd have pulled off $50+ million in its first three days.

Which is why I said that the first two weekends in May 2004 were still solid.

It's a good point. I agree late may will pick up. I think summer movie season really starts when people are out of school which is generally by mid-late may. But they'd been trying to get some ones in before that in recent years. The general pattern seems to be late may is huge, june is good but not quite as huge, july is bigger than june. I'm not sure why it's like that, I just recall over my time on BOM and here that it was like that.

Well Memorial Day Weekend was always considered the start of the movie season even long ago, Thats when the Star Wars and Indiana Jones Sequels were released. Than, the weekend prior was considered big thanks to a smaller drop, then with Spiderman opening so high it was inevidably that people try and continue the success.

the 3rd wekend of May had ALWAYS been the offical kick off to summer....

Until 1996 when Twister opened on the 2nd weekend and just blew the doors off the BO...

then the next year 1997 Fifth Elelmet hoped to do the same (it didnt)...

then came 1998 with Deep impact again on the 2nd weekend, opened well..

1999 is when it all changed to the last weekend of April first weekend of May...

Entrapment and The Mummy both tried to cash in on opening early and since they both did decent, especially The Mummy everyone has stuck with opening May weekend since.... it also didnt help anything that Matrix opened in early April and held on so strong

so look back to 96 and 99 as years when summer starting moving backwards

The Mummy started the trend...but The Mummy Returns and Spider-Man solidified it.

I meant the "first weekend of May" trend.

Another factor in the move towards an earlier summer start in my mind is with the increasing number of tentpole movies and the heightened reliance on a opening weekend gross the studios are forced almost to look for an open weekend wherever they can find it, the sparodic success rate of early May openings shows it to be a risky choice but in the end for some of the blockbusters it's the only game in town

I don't think its a problem of release dates at all. Summer still starts first weekend of May, even if the past 3 years have had disappointments those first few weekends.

Van Helsing, Kingdom of Heaven/House of Wax weren't exactly going to do all that outstanding any weekend, and MI3 had a whole list of other factors that effected its opening. Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon that summer should really start later, but after Spiderman 3 opens to $100 m + next year the first weekend of May 2007, we should expect another shift...

I think that The Mummy did so out of necessity, since it attempted to make as much as possible before TPM opened. Its success, as I remember, came as a surprise, given its large opening and pretty decent total. The Mummy Returns' opening can be credited to the success of the first one, and Spider-Man was by all counts a phenomenon.


I think we've just been seeing how unexceptional films do during the first two weeks of May. It doesn't really surprise me, as that period, although potentially lucrative, isn't really as safe as Memorial Day Weekend or Thanksgiving, where people do actually have a break and have thus automatically more free time to spend at the theatre. I would be disturbed if MMDWknd went awry, but it won't.


Plus, if Spidey opens the summer next year, we're back to hailing the first week of May as the summer starter, so blech.

I actually agree with you on this. I said this last year when the dates were first set, that MI3 and X3 should have switched to copy the release dates of their predecessors. X3 doesn't need Memorial Day to get a huge weekend (it would have easily gotten $90 million, maybe $100 million if it had opened last weekend) and MI3 would have benefited greatly from the holiday. It could have gotten $60 million over the three day, and upwards of $80 million over the four day. I guess they didn't switch because they're from two different studios (Paramount & Fox) but looking at it now, it makes a lot of sense.

Poseidon still would've done badly at any time during the summer, I don't think being released in early May changed the result much. MI:3, again, I don't think it was the date.

Early May still looks like a prime spot to me, The Mummy films and Spider-Man have had no problems.

It's the weakness of springtime movies that lets the summer ones in... Where are sequels to April Love by Pat Boone when the theaters are empty???...

It's just happens to be that some years have strong films released, others have weak ones.

Start of Summer:

1996 - Twister $41m
1997 - The Fifth Element $17m (though Fox tried to start the summer in April with Volcano - but it only had a $14m opening - ironically smaller films like Austin Powers and Breakdown ended up doing better)
1998 - Deep Impact $41m
1999 - The Mummy - $43m
2000 - Gladiator - $34m
2001 - The Mummy Returns - $68m
2002 - Spiderman - $114m
2003 - X2 - $85m
2004 - Van Helsing - $51m
2005 - Kingdom of Heaven - $21m
2006 - MI3 - $48m

I think its too early to say early May isnt working as a "summer" release date. Spidey 3 wll make it all good again!