Traditionally, the last 2 weeks in August have been dumping grounds for movie studios. There are usually still several blockbusters in theaters, so the studios don't want to compete with those. Also, students are starting to go back to school. So movies released near the end of August tend to be movies that the studios are not expecting to do well, but which they want to release. Same logic applies in January, after the holiday blockbuster season. This has changed a bit recently. Some studios, realizing that everyone else was releasing dreck in that timeframe, started releasing good movies, because those, of course, could compete easily with the bad movies. It's complicated, but it's still a good idea to be aware of this.