Leonard Part 6 came out in December 1987 (I know this, sadly, b/c I actually did see it in theaters at age 9). Double-checked it online, too. It was a Christmas season wide release.
Some of my favorite films to debut in theaters in January: Tremors, Matinee, Alive, Haywire.
I saw "Tremors" with about a dozen other people on its opening weekend in 1990. I thought immediately after seeing it that this movie would discover its audience on video and cable and should have been seen in the theater. I also liked "Jackie Chan's First Strike" (January 1997), or does that really count as it was released elsewhere earlier?
Jan 11, 2023·edited Jan 11, 2023Liked by Scott Tobias
I also saw Tremors opening weekend (i was about to turn 12) and loved it. RIP Fred Ward (who also starred in one of my other favorite childhood B movies, "Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.")
I haven’t revisited it, either, but I have no reason to believe that it hasn’t held up. Kaufman was about to slip up afterwards, but he was still in a groove. (My main memory of that movie is that it played at the AMC theater where I worked in Georgia and a former concessionist called the theater to protest us showing it!)
On the other hand, it is kind of amazing the studio saw Leonard Part 6 and said, "Yes, let's put this out there in one of the most competitive times of the year."
I get why they put it out, but I'm surprised they put it out amidst the cutthroat competition of mid-December instead of hoping Cosby's name would get it a decent opening on a slow weekend in January or February.
This is primarily a NYC, Chicago, LA problem. For a lot of America, January is a month of Christmas season holdovers and award season expansions. It's when things like American Sniper go wide after their tiny awards qualifying releases.
I don't know if it will be a hit or not, but A Man Called Otto has box office and maybe some awards hope and is essentially a new release for much of the country.
I think A Man Called Otto could be one of those movies like Crawdads or Black Phone or Everything Everywhere that just slowly accumulates a decent total.
Yeah, I think it has some hope at the box office. I've seen A Man Called Ove and while that didn't register much with me, I can see why an adaptation with Tom Hanks could be one of those moderate sleeper hits.
That was January for me growing up too. You finally got the movies they'd been writing about. Or things like A Simple Plan that finally made it to the sticks.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any that got traction for major awards. The closest would be Silence of the Lambs, which had its wide release on February 14, 1991.
I thought GET OUT was early February but apparently not, so SILENCE seems to be the winner here. But both of them also show that if you come out that early you need to be a total cultural phenomenon to be remembered at awards time.
1. When did the NFL become an all encompassing juggernaut?
2. When did Awards season become something that was set aside? When the Oscars were just handing awards to big films, I don't think any special consideration was made.
The late 1950s NFL Championship game between the Giants and Colts that went into OT is generally considered the moment when the NFL became super popular. The Super Bowl started in January 1967.
Granted, I was born in 1978 so someone older than me might be better suited to comment on the above, but it's most definitely been an all-encompassing juggernaut for as long as I can remember (and I am a football fan).
Yeah, the NFL has been big for a long time now. But, I feel that between expanding the schedule and the playoffs it's taking up a much bigger footprint than it used to. There used to be a time, not that long ago, when the NFL season would end in December and you might even get a playoff game in December. Now, between the last week of the regular season and the expanded playoffs, it takes up all of January with many more games. That certainly can't be helping theaters.
It's funny you mentioned Cabin Boy, because the first time I thought about this phenomenon was an early 1995 interview where David Letterman asked how award season was treating it, and Chris Elliott answered that "Mother Oscar often forgets her children of January."
I think the release decisions influenced by awards season are partly to blame for January woes and lower overall box office, especially on a regional basis. Working in a movie theatres in Wichita, Kansas from 1997-2003, January tended to be a time when movies that had done well at festivals and in award competitions from the previous year would expand enough to make it to the midwest and plains states. Some of those art house titles would stretch back to Cannes. They had been in the culture for a long time, played major markets and were not necessarily being marketed the way a normal new release would be. Then there are people who would wait for the Academy Awards nominations or even the results to determine where to spend their dollars. That created a wait and see period that was not helped by releases like Eddie Murphy's Metro or comedies like Beverly Hills Ninja.
Consider me in the group of people who's spending January catching up on December releases that I didn't get to in December or didn't open here until January. As such, the dumping ground reputation of January doesn't have the imprint in my mind beyond the abstract understanding that a movie with an official in January is one they aren't making an awards push for.
Jan 12, 2023·edited Jan 12, 2023Liked by Scott Tobias
A revival Shoot the Moon would be amazing (though, of course, highly improbable). It's as honest a relationship movie to come out of Hollywood in the 80s, and it features astonishing turns from Finney and especially Keaton, one of the greatest actors of that era. Go see Shoot the Moon!
I saw it because it was one of the movies cheap enough for the service that we had in non-cable-having Baltimore could show many times. It stood out as something that was too good to just be on TV.
Has there ever been a more closed circle than the January 1989 release of The January Man- a misbegotten combination of Kevin Kline, Alan Rickman, Mary Elizabeth Mastriantonio, and a terrible John Patrick Shanley script? It is the platonic ideal of the January dump movie.
I think MEGAN and the like are brilliant uses of January. I mainly love the month (apart from it being my birthday month) because it gives us time to catch up on the awards bait. But the smarties who deliver something like a solid killer doll movie in the middle of all of that makes a lot of sense. (See also SCANNERS.)
Leonard Part 6 came out in December 1987 (I know this, sadly, b/c I actually did see it in theaters at age 9). Double-checked it online, too. It was a Christmas season wide release.
Some of my favorite films to debut in theaters in January: Tremors, Matinee, Alive, Haywire.
I saw "Tremors" with about a dozen other people on its opening weekend in 1990. I thought immediately after seeing it that this movie would discover its audience on video and cable and should have been seen in the theater. I also liked "Jackie Chan's First Strike" (January 1997), or does that really count as it was released elsewhere earlier?
I also saw Tremors opening weekend (i was about to turn 12) and loved it. RIP Fred Ward (who also starred in one of my other favorite childhood B movies, "Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.")
God bless Fred Ward. Also incredible in the indispensable 1990 comedy-noir Miami Blues.
How well has Henry & June aged? I love Ward and Phil Kaufman, but a little apprehensive to revisit this fearing it won't hold up.
I haven’t revisited it, either, but I have no reason to believe that it hasn’t held up. Kaufman was about to slip up afterwards, but he was still in a groove. (My main memory of that movie is that it played at the AMC theater where I worked in Georgia and a former concessionist called the theater to protest us showing it!)
Darn. I got some bad information. Going to find another example.
On the other hand, it is kind of amazing the studio saw Leonard Part 6 and said, "Yes, let's put this out there in one of the most competitive times of the year."
Studios put out bad pictures by big stars all the time expecting them to make money. Cosby was a big star at the time.
I get why they put it out, but I'm surprised they put it out amidst the cutthroat competition of mid-December instead of hoping Cosby's name would get it a decent opening on a slow weekend in January or February.
This is primarily a NYC, Chicago, LA problem. For a lot of America, January is a month of Christmas season holdovers and award season expansions. It's when things like American Sniper go wide after their tiny awards qualifying releases.
I don't know if it will be a hit or not, but A Man Called Otto has box office and maybe some awards hope and is essentially a new release for much of the country.
I think A Man Called Otto could be one of those movies like Crawdads or Black Phone or Everything Everywhere that just slowly accumulates a decent total.
Yeah, I think it has some hope at the box office. I've seen A Man Called Ove and while that didn't register much with me, I can see why an adaptation with Tom Hanks could be one of those moderate sleeper hits.
I was going to say almost exactly this. IME January is about seeing prestige flicks that opened on in NY/LA at the end of the previous year.
but those aren't cracking the top 10, I would guess
That was January for me growing up too. You finally got the movies they'd been writing about. Or things like A Simple Plan that finally made it to the sticks.
Are there any movies that have opened in January according to Academy rules and gone on to win or be nominated for an Oscar?
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any that got traction for major awards. The closest would be Silence of the Lambs, which had its wide release on February 14, 1991.
I thought GET OUT was early February but apparently not, so SILENCE seems to be the winner here. But both of them also show that if you come out that early you need to be a total cultural phenomenon to be remembered at awards time.
Two final thoughts.
1. When did the NFL become an all encompassing juggernaut?
2. When did Awards season become something that was set aside? When the Oscars were just handing awards to big films, I don't think any special consideration was made.
The late 1950s NFL Championship game between the Giants and Colts that went into OT is generally considered the moment when the NFL became super popular. The Super Bowl started in January 1967.
Granted, I was born in 1978 so someone older than me might be better suited to comment on the above, but it's most definitely been an all-encompassing juggernaut for as long as I can remember (and I am a football fan).
Yeah, the NFL has been big for a long time now. But, I feel that between expanding the schedule and the playoffs it's taking up a much bigger footprint than it used to. There used to be a time, not that long ago, when the NFL season would end in December and you might even get a playoff game in December. Now, between the last week of the regular season and the expanded playoffs, it takes up all of January with many more games. That certainly can't be helping theaters.
It's funny you mentioned Cabin Boy, because the first time I thought about this phenomenon was an early 1995 interview where David Letterman asked how award season was treating it, and Chris Elliott answered that "Mother Oscar often forgets her children of January."
I think the release decisions influenced by awards season are partly to blame for January woes and lower overall box office, especially on a regional basis. Working in a movie theatres in Wichita, Kansas from 1997-2003, January tended to be a time when movies that had done well at festivals and in award competitions from the previous year would expand enough to make it to the midwest and plains states. Some of those art house titles would stretch back to Cannes. They had been in the culture for a long time, played major markets and were not necessarily being marketed the way a normal new release would be. Then there are people who would wait for the Academy Awards nominations or even the results to determine where to spend their dollars. That created a wait and see period that was not helped by releases like Eddie Murphy's Metro or comedies like Beverly Hills Ninja.
I appreciate this Creech representation.
Consider me in the group of people who's spending January catching up on December releases that I didn't get to in December or didn't open here until January. As such, the dumping ground reputation of January doesn't have the imprint in my mind beyond the abstract understanding that a movie with an official in January is one they aren't making an awards push for.
That was, of course, no accident.
This was a reply to the Creech comment. I think it got misplaced.
A revival Shoot the Moon would be amazing (though, of course, highly improbable). It's as honest a relationship movie to come out of Hollywood in the 80s, and it features astonishing turns from Finney and especially Keaton, one of the greatest actors of that era. Go see Shoot the Moon!
I saw it because it was one of the movies cheap enough for the service that we had in non-cable-having Baltimore could show many times. It stood out as something that was too good to just be on TV.
Has there ever been a more closed circle than the January 1989 release of The January Man- a misbegotten combination of Kevin Kline, Alan Rickman, Mary Elizabeth Mastriantonio, and a terrible John Patrick Shanley script? It is the platonic ideal of the January dump movie.
I think MEGAN and the like are brilliant uses of January. I mainly love the month (apart from it being my birthday month) because it gives us time to catch up on the awards bait. But the smarties who deliver something like a solid killer doll movie in the middle of all of that makes a lot of sense. (See also SCANNERS.)