Last year, Marvel Studios stepped out of their traditional summer comfort zone by releasing Thor: The Dark World in November. The gambit paid off; the film grossed over $200 million in North America and over $600 at the worldwide box office. They did the same thing again this year, releasing Captain America: The Winter Soldier in April, a full month ahead of what is traditionally called the summer movie season in North America, and have again struck gold; the movie's opening weekend in the U.S. and Canada outgrossed its predecessor by 46% ($95 million to the first movies $65 million), and its worldwide grosses are currently at over $300 million. It's already earned more in the rest of the world (outside North America) in two weeks than the first movie made in its entire run. Clearly, Marvel movies can thrive even without the benefit of the "summer season," as long as the product is strong and awareness is high.
In the wake of the success of The Winter Soldier, Marvel has made an interesting revelation. Some months ago, rival studio Warner Brothers, responsible for the filmed adaptations of the characters of the DC Comics Universe, announced that they would be releasing their highly-anticipated film Batman vs. Superman, on May 6, 2016, or the first weekend of the U.S summer movie season. This was a big announcement for two reasons: first, for 7 of the last 10 years, and for every year since 2007, the movie released on that date has always featured characters sourced from Marvel Comics and second, an unnamed Marvel movie had already been staked out on that spot. In the wake of the successful opening of The Winter Soldier, Marvel has now announced that the movie intended for that release date is the next Captain America movie, whatever it will be called.
This calls to my mind a marketing tactic pulled by Sony Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Pictures back in 2006, when they were marketing the James Bond reboot Casino Royale. Before its release in November, 2006, Sony and MGM, confident in the quality of their film which some naysayers were already pooh-poohing, largely because of opposition to the casting of Daniel Craig in the title role, announced that they already had a release date for the sequel to the yet-unreleased film: the first weekend of May, 2008, a date which then-fledgling Marvel Studios had already staked for their inaugural release, Iron Man. Some befuddlement followed; studios were not nearly as aggressive about staking out release dates back then as they are now, and 2008 was, for the most part, a clean slate. Iron Man director Jon Favreau was supposedly quoted as describing Sony's move as "fighting for a slot in an empty parking lot." What they didn't realize back then was that Sony was less concerned about selling a movie that had not even been made yet and more preoccupied with selling the pricey, risky reboot they were just about to release. In the end, Casino Royale made lots of money, and interestingly enough, the follow-up, Quantum of Solace moved out of the May 2008 slot to a November 2008 release date.
By announcing that Captain America will take on Batman AND Superman in terms of release dates, Marvel's marketing people no doubt hope to generate large amounts of buzz for their current release, CA: TWS by getting people wonder what it is about this film that is so good that Marvel has so much confidence in their next one. Time, and the final grosses of CA: TWS will tell if this move was a smart one.
In any case, it doesn't even matter if Marvel moves out of the spot, as they have already established that their movies will sell no matter when they're released. The August 1 release date for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy no longer seems so strange. Heck, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if, someday, Marvel actually dared to schedule films for release in the typically fallow months of January and September. Truth be told, the only other studio that has experienced this kind of near-infallible box-office reliability is Marvel's Disney stablemate Pixar, though it must be said that Marvel has proven a bit more ballsy than Pixar in terms of release dates as evidenced by the early spring release for the Cap sequel.
Incidentally, boxofficemojo.com, a website dedicated to tabulating movie grosses, has just announced that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the highest grossing film franchise in North America, ever.
It is a damned good time to be a Marvel fan...
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