This weekend made me want to think about the worst release dates of all time, which dramatically impacted box office grosses.

What would you all say are the worst release dates of all time?

I have a few but the most memorable one I remember is Prince Caspian, the Narnia sequel moving from December to May.

Narnia was the #2 movie of 2005 behind only SW3. $745M worldwide and $292M domestic tally. Prince Caspian finished with $141M domestically and $420M worldwide. It was #15 for the year.

Even if book #1 was more popular, it was a franchise destroyer for what could have been a HP type franchise.

Of course, I know there are circumstances of global events impacting box office but more focusing on studios that chose bad release dates in a self made debacle vs external circumstances.

One minor one in recent memory is I don't understand why Lyle Lyle Crocodile was dropped in October, seemed like an obvious move to mirror Greatest Showman in December

Probably bombs anyway, but November 1st for Terminator Dark Fate doesn't seem right, they're June/July movies.

Those are good ones. My only reasoning maybe on Lyle is family movies were still not fully recovered from Covid and they thought it would be better by fall.

I thought Bumblebee's release date was bad. It did OK in the end, but that film should've had a summer release. It ended up charting third behind Mary Poppins Returns. As I said, it ended up doing moderately but that's not a good start, and it only finished well because it had the inflated holidays.

Hellboy 2 releasing a week before The Dark Knight is first one that comes to mind. There are bad dates all the time though. A lesser example is The Pope's Exorcist releasing in April this year when everyone should have known that was an August movie.

I think of Summer 2003. I've never seen so many action movies released ever.

Detective Pikachu a week after Avengers

Superman Returns and Man of Steel were both colossal fuck ups. Enormous competition destroyed any potential for legs during each films 2nd weekend.

Superman Returns should have just moved to Christmas. Had they given MAN OF STEEL the mid July release that WB gave Pacific Rim, I would bet we MOS finished with numbers in the $350m domestic / $800m worldwide vicinity and WB likely takes a very different approach to the sequel.

Probably due to the male egos involved but Bugs Life and Antz shouldn't have opened up within 6 weeks of each other.

Same with Deep Impact and Armageddon.

Shazam moving from December probably lost it at least 30-40m total.

That was done intentionally by the Antz people capitalizing on their brand being new and the majority of people that were developing A Bugs Life left to make Antz, so it was a big fuck you to Pixar. I actually prefer Antz.

Makes sense given the animosity Katzenberg (ex-Disney, Dreamworks) had against Disney.

Feels like MI7 is going to rank high on this list.

Overconfidence and misreading the market resulted in a botched box office performance.

As much as I felt TGM would benefit MI7 it seems like 14 months gap would limit any impact in hindsight. Paramount used TGM for a lot of its MI7 publicity including the first teaser, Cruise thanking TGM fans right before filming a scene for MI, etc.

The release date proximity to Barbenheimer was just too much to overcome. The triple edge here was Sound of Freedom which also took a lot of buzz away from MI a few days earlier. Any benefit from TGM appeal in the heartland to pull in audiences that rarely came out to theaters went to Sound instead.

Seeing how Ghost Protocol did, this could easily have worked at Christmas as well. Aquaman looks DOA.

I do think Paramount sort of phoned it in from a marketing perspective and assumed TGM association could be ridden and may have done less than they should specifically for MI7.

Cruise as well I heard was adamant that MI not get a September release and stick with its release date. The allure of the big summer popcorn movie made it more primed for big competition.

In 2022, we only saw Batman, Sonic 2, and Dr. Strange do more than $45M OW and no other movie made over $17M when TGM opened giving it a completely open market. Had JP6 in weekend #3 then LY, Elvis and Blackphone as the only other movies in its first 6 weeks. Not to downplay TGM's enormous run but it had the ability to do big business in a market primed for a breakout.

The Fast franchise has some valuable lessons for all franchises. When it was in rebuilding mode, it shifted to April which gave it enough room to break records, have less competition and expand its audience. It only moved back to summer later on but I feel it never would have turned around if Fast4 (2009) stayed in the summer.

Another one I membered - Doctor Sleep. Why would you release a high profile horror film two weeks after Halloween?

Because it's not really a horror film at all, and would have bombed even more than it did if the studio promoted it as a horror for Halloween. It's more just a film made to appeal to a small niche of Shining fans, and they'll come out whenever it's released.

D&D this year (a week after Wick and a week before Mario Bros/Air). Also coming out at the end of a stacked March.

Surprised nobody had mentioned Disney releasing Hocus Pocus in the middle of summer of all times!

I thought about it but it was worth its own thread as worst non-theatrical release decision!

Would have done $150M+ or even $200M theatrically and was huge on streaming.

I forgot about this. I don't understand how they didn't realize the geek audience would rush out to Mario on week #2. They had a quality film and a solid opening but Mario killed its legs and destroyed any chance of it starting a franchise.

Or 2 on Disney+ would have had a 50+ opening considering how good the re releases did

Yes and unfortunately it was pretty good so a huge shame we probably wont see a sequel.

Hellboy 2
Mission Impossible 7

Pirates: At World's End

Disney exec: Mid-July worked perfectly for the first two films, I suppose we should just do that again.

Other Disney exec: Hear me out, what if we pushed it up two months, sky rocketing the budget in the process, to open it in the same month as two other $100M openers?

Disney exec: Brilliant! That's why you get the ten million dollar Christmas bonus!