Traditionally, movies that are going to be “blockbuster films” are released over the summer or toward the end of the year as awards buzz is heating up. But studios want to change that and start releasing major films, like Steven Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express in the spring. Spring has largely been considered a kind of “dead zone” in Hollywood’s release calendar. Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst for the data firm ComScore told The Los Angeles Times that in Hollywood, “there’s the holiday season, there’s awards season, there’s the summer movie season — and then there’s spring. What the hell is spring?” But Valentine’s Day through the end of April has become an increasingly vital window for studios to release some of their biggest films. Several titles — including Fifty Shades Freed, Black Panther, Tomb Raider and Ready Player One — are being released during that timeframe. The idea is “if you build it, they will come.” As studios started to move larger films like Fast and the Furious or The Hunger Games into time frames once relatively lacking in box office fireworks, audiences followed.
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