January is the graveyard for movies that turned out to be turkeys, a month for studios to clear the slate. But it wasn’t always that way. Summer used to be the season to forget. That changed because a beach-themed film wanted to attract beachgoers. After that film (Jaws, of course) proved it was a winning time of year, the warm months gradually became the big stage for blockbusters. From Priceonomics:

“Why didn’t Hollywood think to distribute their biggest pictures during the summer? Executives thought that people had better things to do with their time than sit in a dark room watching movies all summer. As the Financial Times writes:

Back then June, July and August were the movie industry’s low season. By day, everyone was on the beach; by night, eating, drinking, dancing and carrying on. Who wanted to go rectangle-eyed in the dark, watching movies? That was a winter thing.

Jaws was the first film to challenge this conventional thinking. One reason for the then unorthodox timing? The Times also notes that the producer stated, ‘The release of the film was deliberately delayed till people were in the water off the summer beach resorts.’ Director Steven Spielberg wanted the fear to be as real as possible, and that apparently included making sure that as many viewers as possible came from the beach to the film.”