Iron Man was a game changer, because it introduced a character few people had ever heard of and turned him into a household name. People went to see the first film because of positive word of mouth. When they arrived at the theater they were unexpectedly impressed. Now, you hear things at Starbucks like "I'm not a comic book fan. I'm not a comic book movie fan. But I saw Iron Man and loved it.".

I think people would see the sequel in March, June, or even January because the people who are waiting for it will go, but so will the people who aren't necessarily waiting for it. That's something that Watchmen couldn't generate...X-Over Appeal.

I agree with Will wholeheartedly, and to tell you the truth Colin, I don't think that there needs to be a "summer movie season" anymore. Movies like "Paul Blart" and "Fast & Furious" (regardless of their quality) showed that any movie can open at the box office at any given time, and if there's fan or mainstream appeal, it will do well. People who enjoy going to the movies will make time to watch a film that appeals to them, regardless if its during the summer or if they have days off or whatever.

Does Iron Man 2 need to be a summer movie? No and the first installment wasn't poised as such either. The perception that it's maximizing the profits is why there will still be big budget films aimed at the summer months. Though it's more than perception isn't it?

The studios that shell out the megabucks per film also pay plenty for market analysis/trends/demographics and whatnot. If any old date on the calendar was so easily interchangeable with any other we'd have The Dark Knight released on Christmas Day and kickoff New Year's Day with Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen. However, big budget blockbuster hopefuls are never planted on such holidays and there must be a reason beyond the notion that summer is better because kids are out of school.

It could be argued that the numbers they look at for summer blockbusters only serve to perpetuate the idea that summer is prime time for such films because they never pick release dates outside of the summer perimeter. Could The Dark Knight have done as well if it were a Christmas release? What studio is going to risk their big budget film to find that out? While Iron Man did quite well in early May of 2008, Wolverine did not pull off the same success almost a year later. Not that a summer release would've helped Wolverine but the perception is there.

I think as more big budget films are spread into the months leading up to and trailing out of summer and the successes and failures even out, we'll come to see less of the big summer tent poles but probably not by much. Old habits die hard and studios like to land big box office scores within their fiscal year cycles.

A good movie can steam-roll in any season. Titanic after all was a Winter release, which suggests that if all conditions were just right that Dark Knight could do the same if planted on a different date. The Summer movie season is a product of the Spielberg-Lucas era anyway, isn't it? I'd like to see Hollywood adopt a Nintendo business model again and just make good movies w/o worrying so much about market research. It would be nice to be sideswiped by something special once in a while without months-long hype machines telling us it's coming. Is that even possible in the internet age?

The problem with citing Titanic in anything is that no other movie that's followed it has been in release and as relatively unopposed for such a long period (42 weeks). Hang any given film out at the box office for that amount of time without competition and it's going to keep piling up the cash even if it's crap. Dark Knight ran 33 weeks which doesn't seem like too much difference until you consider that it had more competition against it and 12 weeks in it had fallen below 1,000 screens. By contrast, Titanic didn't drop below 1,000 screens until after it passed 25 weeks in fact it surged in total screens after release where Knight steadily dropped screens as it went along.

I'd like to see a greater spread of big budget films throughout the year so that you don't get halfway through summer and there's nothing significant left from August-December. Such spreading out of films would also serve to eliminate the needless cramming of films into one year leaving the following year in a veritable drought. Studios are going to do what they will though and much of it will sadly be very predictable.

I find myself agreeing with the above posts. With how things are today, people won't go see crap movies... they'll spend their money on a movie they have a better chance of enjoying, whether it be in the summer, winter, spring or fall.

The problem with comparing anything to Titanic is that, well, there's a lot more movies being released these days with large budgets. Seems Hollywood is going for quantity over quality these days, and hoping if you throw enough stuff at the wall, something is bound to stick...