According to a Variety article that I commented on yesterday, during the past four years new sources of funding like private equity money have created a ‘surplus of movies’ that are forcing Hollywood to release ‘heavyweight’ movies across a wider spectrum of dates, other than on just around Easter, summer and the year-end holidays. During the past five years the biggest budget releases have normally been focused on these dates, but higher budget ceilings are slowly creeping up around other months.

The months of May, June and December stand out as being the points of highest investment. The three highest spikes in the graph are in May 2007, November 2008 and December 2009, respectively for Spider-Man 3 ($258 million), Quantum of Solace ($230 million) and Avatar ($250 million). August  was slow before 2007, before it was considered part of the summer blockbuster season.

Looking at the first quarter, with the exception of Astérix aux jeux Olimpiques in 2008, January held budgets below $70 million. In fact the last time Hollywood launched a January release with greater than a $75 million budget was in 2000 with Fantasia 2000. This February no studio released a major picture. March has seen the most steady rise, reaching $130 million this year with Watchmen. Inversely, April has been falling, perhaps since studios prefer to delay big releases until May.

Based on the extraordinary box office performance during the first quarter of 2009, perhaps studios will overcome their fear and place more blockbusters there in the future.