The Stigma of January Movies

What is it about movies in January the have a similar pattern? January is notorious for Hollywood releasing movies that the studios have very little faith in and don’t expect to profit. Besides the wide release Christmas and Oscar nominated holdovers, January has a lot of horror and action movies that get released. Rarely do January released movies have good reviews or make a lot of money. According to an article on Business Insider this can be also because of people’s financial situations. People have just spent a lot of money from the holidays and aren’t looking to spend a lot of money. The bad weather in January also prevents people from going to the movies.

Bad Boys for Life is a recent exception but typically a lot of PG-13 horror movies come out in January with low budgets and they will get sequels in better movie months like May, June, or July. Movies that have had their release dates pushed back will often get January releases. Some other bad January realizes over the years have included Mortdecai, I, Frankenstein, Epic Movie, Bride Wars, The Book of Eli, Legion, Texas Chainsaw 3D, Live By Night, and the list goes on. But there is one movie from 2008 that was one of the best movies financially and critically to come out in January. Taken stars Liam Neeson and was a huge success that not only spawned two sequels and a television show, but revitalized Liam Neeson’s career since then. There have been a lot of animated movies, some from foreign countries starring big name actors that have also been released in January. Hoodwinked!, Strange Magic, Norm of the North, and are good examples.

Now while so many movies that were critically and financial failures, do audiences get enjoyment out of some of these movies? I have enjoyed many January release movies that have entertained me despite the mass consensus. The Hellboy remake was fun and straight from the comics and Broken City starring Mark Wahlberg was a good crime drama. Kung Fu Panda 3 was an amazing end to the trilogy of movies. So while a lot of movies in January are probably duds you may not want to count them all out just yet and maybe take a chance on one. But most aren't worth the time and money.