Film studios occasionally withhold movies from critics before their release. These cold openings provide a natural setting to apply laboratory-developed models of limited strategic thinking to the field. In a set of 1303 widely released movies, cold opening is correlated with a 10-30 percent...

Film distributors occasionally withhold movies from critics before their release. Cold openings provide a natural field setting to test models of limited strategic thinking. In a set of 856 widely released movies, cold opening produces a significant 15% increase in domestic box office revenue...