To illustrate their story about Fox shuffling their release schedule for next year, Variety used a still from Paul Blart: Mall Cop. But they just as easily could have picked Liam Neeson kicking ass in Taken, or Vin Diesel strutting around in Fast & Furious, since the point is clear-- movies released in the first quarter of the year can make money, and everybody knows it.
Fox especially, which got a much-needed surprise hit with Taken in February, and is now shifting two movies to the beginning of 2010 to hopefully capture the same audience. Well, not the exact same audience-- the Dwayne Johnson family movie The Tooth Fairy and the Tina Fey-Steve Carell comedy Date Night won't exactly bring in the teenage boys who watched Neeson destroy France. But that's actually a good thing, expanding on your fanbase and all that.
It'll probably be a while before the first four months of the year stop being a wasteland for Oscar-caliber movies and all that, but at least we're making progress here.
