Suppose that a studio releases a action-combat blockbuster movie, the type typically seen around summer (i.e., the Dark Knight type,) around Christmas when most folks are looking for cheery-holiday festive stuff. Would this considerably dampen the success of the movie at the box office, or would people still be in the mood for that sort of combat/action even in Christmas?
The Lord of the Rings was released December, 19th, 2001.
Didn’t seem to hurt it none.
The last two Star Wars movies didn’t seem to suffer from late December release dates.
The Force Awakens. Rogue One.
(Oops. Enter the Ninja’d.)
Weather’s shitty and everyone’s off work. Seems like the perfect time for Big Tentpole nonsense.
Addendum: everyone’s sick of Christmas by Thanksgiving these days
“Somebody get these kids outta the goddam house for a couple hours…”
A lot of the early Bond movies except for YOLT (released in June '67) were released in December. I think Live and Let Die cemented the summer release date for those movies.
What? :dubious:
Superman was a December 1978 release and Flash Gordon was released in December 1980, so this was tried pretty early into the post-Jaws summer blockbuster era.
U.S. Thanksgiving weekend was also tried a lot in the '80s: Rocky IV, Star Trek IV and Back to the Future II all had late November releases.
DJANGO UNCHAINED came out in late December, did $425m on a $100m budget.
The first MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movie was #1 at the box office in June, and made more money by still being in the Top Ten during 4th of July weekend; third-biggest movie to come out that year. And the second was #1 at the box office in June, and made more money by still being in the Top Ten during 4th of July weekend, as the biggest movie to come out that year. But the third dropped out of the Top Ten in June, and was only the eighth-biggest movie of its year, and, well, that’s just unacceptable.
So when it came time for a fourth installment, they had it hit theaters in December, and it wound up doing plenty better than eighth place for the year; heck, that sucker still has the biggest gross of any Tom Cruise movie ever.
It’s my recollection that while some of the Harry Potter movies were released in the summer, others came out around Thanksgiving. I don’t care enough to check the dates for all eight movies, but the IMDb tells me the first two were indeed released in November.
Titanic had a mid-December release.
And the only movie ever to outgross it – the one with the gunships and the soldiers and the jungle warfare and et cetera – hit theaters in December likewise.
December is summer.
(NZ. Y-Seasons-MV.) 
Personally?
I could care less what month it is
I live in florida, probably sitting outside in shorts in december most years, and dont care about the holiday, release what ever as log as it does not suck. 
Then we have Die Hard, which is a Christmas movie, but was released in July.
Couldn’t care less.