It wouldn't be the first time a release date was changed due to expected box office. Stardust springs to mind; it was intended to be a spring release, but they thought it might make more money in the summer, so it got delayed until August. Whether that helped it or not, I cannot say; I would have gone to see it no matter what.

Now, if it were delayed for a January or February release--even March or April--that would be a very bad sign indeed. Blockbusters and other movies with high financial expectations are summer movies. Oscar fodder tends to get released in October through December--to qualify for the Oscars, the movie must be released in at least two theatres, one from a list of New York theatres and one from a list of LA theatres, by 31 December. The remaining stretch of the year is the Dead Zone, so to speak, the time when movies aren't expected to make any money or be remembered during Oscar time.

There are exceptions; Silence of the Lambs, which swept the big five awards, was released in March. This year, one of the Best Actress nominees--Julie Christie--was in a movie that I saw on DVD months ago. (The truly excellent Canadian film Away from Her; check it out.) Some of them--Silence of the Lambs again, I believe--didn't exactly hurt in the box office, either, and Gods know there are enough summer releases that flop. But that's Hollywood's expectation, so a summer release is generally a better sign than you might think.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"