THE FIVE LIES OF A HOLLYWOOD SUMMER:
1. The summer produces more hits than the winter. Wrong. Summer (on the movie calendar, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, give or take a week) can bring the major movie studios 40% of their business, but during the past three years, more films released in the winter (from mid-November through March) have grossed in excess of $100 million domestically. The summer just produces more predictable hits, mostly sequels. "Hollywood is front loading the summer with blockbuster sequel products," notes Martin Grove, film analyst for the Hollywood Reporter, "which virtually guarantees that the early...