10 Signs An Upcoming Film Is Going To Bomb HARD
8. The Dreaded January/February Release Date
January and February are historically known as Hollywood's major "dump months," where studios typically offload the projects they've got no faith in whatsoever.
Some of the most prominent early-year duds include the rancid Johnny Depp vehicle Mortdecai, Chris Hemsworth's tech thriller Blackhat, and most recently, Blake Lively's action flick The Rhythm Section.
It's not an exact science by any means, as The Silence of the Lambs won the Best Picture Oscar despite releasing in February and low-budget horror films like The Devil Inside have flourished in this frame, but more often than not, the dump months represent a total lack of interest from the studio, and therefore likely audiences also.
Yet the fact that the first two months of the year are so often used to dispose of rotten movies effectively conditions audiences to expect garbage, in turn making them less likely to turn up for on-the-fence projects released during that period.