Decades-old 'rule' of cinema has been destroyed by 2023's movies already

We've only just made it to February, but already 2023 has brought us a number of new movies that have broken a decades-old 'rule' in cinema.

Missing, M3GAN and Plane are just some of the new movies that film fans have been treated to so far this year as they got worldwide releases, and we look set to stay entertained in the next few weeks with even more expected bangers slated for release.

February comes packed with M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - and we can't forget the new Puss In Boots movie.

The highly-rated slate marks a big change from previous years of cinema, when the months of January, February and March held a series of film flops.

In fact, they've held so many poorly-rated movies that it became a bit of a known 'rule' that the first quarter of the year, and January in particular, was not one for good movies.

The trend has earned its own Wikipedia entry under 'Dump months', which explains: "The dump months are what the film community has... called the two periods of the year when there have been lowered commercial and critical expectations for most new theatrical releases from American filmmakers and distributors."

A few previous examples to support this 'rule' include 2016's Dirty Grandpa, which has a score of 10 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, Bride Wars (2009) with a score of 11 percent, and Big Momma's House 2 (2006), with a measly score of five percent.

Lionsgate

It's clear the trend has been ongoing for years - until now.

Just over five weeks in to 2023, many of the films released have broken the rule by achieving much higher ratings than their predecessors.

M3GAN, released in the UK on 13 January, has achieved a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94 percent; while Plane, released on 27 January, has been rated 77 percent.

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, which arrived in the UK on 3 February, has been highly praised at 95 percent, and Knock At The Cabin is also far above previous January figures at 67 percent.

The success of this year's releases might indicate that the cycle of 'dump months' is largely broken, though I suppose we'll just have to hope that all the flops don't start to appear later in the year instead.

If we remain optimistic, it looks like 2023 is going to be a great year in cinema.

Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity

Emily Brown

Emily Brown is UNILAD Editorial Lead at LADbible Group. She first began delivering news when she was just 11 years old - with a paper route - before graduating with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University. Emily joined UNILAD in 2018 to cover breaking news, trending stories and longer form features. She went on to become Community Desk Lead, commissioning and writing human interest stories from across the globe, before moving to the role of Editorial Lead. Emily now works alongside the UNILAD Editor to ensure the page delivers accurate, interesting and high quality content.