Here’s a chart of the top 10 Best Picture contenders (in my view) along with a chart of last year’s nominees (as of January 1st) for handy comparison.
I’ve heard it said several times that the nominee with the second highest gross often wins Best Picture. Feel free to debunk or verify that claim. Here are some hard facts:
In the past 10 years, 11 best picture nominees grossed over $100 mil before Oscar nominations were announced: The Departed, Seabiscuit, A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator, Erin Brokovich, The Sixth Sense, The Green Mile, Saving Private Ryan, and the 3 films of The Lord of ka-Ching trilogy. (In other words, roughly one out of every five nominees had a box-office exceeding $100, pre-nomination.)
In the past decade, only 4 films earning less than $10 mil before nominations were announced had the critical mass to overcome their weak dowry: The Pianist ($9 mil), There Will Be Blood ($8.5 mi), Million Dollar Baby ($8 mil), and Letters from Iwo Jima ($2.5 mil). In light of those stats, Revolutionary Road and The Wrestler need to go wide and start raking in some cash, and fast.
We’ll update this year’s top contenders the night before nominations — and I’ll make adjustments to the 10 titles, depending on what we learn from the PGA and DGA nominees. For a look at where last year’s nominees stood on the day nominations were announced, check out the chart after the cut.
Comparing total gross to pre-nom gross it’s pretty easy to see which movie benefited most from it’s rack of nominations. Not Juno; it was already headed north of $100 mil with or without an Oscar-nom kickstart. Atonement nearly tripled its domestic box-office take between nominations day and Oscar night. But There Will Be Blood increased its earnings by a factor of 20.
Which movie stands to gain the most from multiple nominations this year? Which is beyond help? I have my theories; what are yours?
45 Responses for "The Oscar Numbers: Follow the Money"
I’m going to predict that Slumdog will earn more domestically than TCCOBB after it’s widely released. It’s doing so well in 600 theatres.
I’m really hoping Slumdog breaks the $100 million barrier. I think it can if it expands well after the nominations. A win would very much help its cause as well.
Considering Ben Button’s gigantic budget, it’s going to have to pull down a whole lot more to make a profit.
Revolutionary Road should’ve been released much sooner.
Slumdog Millionaire only had a budget of about $25 mil, I think. That’s about what No Country for Old Men cost to produce.
I have a chart up comparing this year’s box-office with last year’s nominees, in the article above the one Sasha has posted here.
Will Slumdog expand considerably after nominations?
They should start expanding between now and nominations, Xavier.
Slumdog is currently playing in 600 theaters. This time last year, Juno was playing on 1000 screens but before Jan 22 it had expanded to 2500, and stayed there until Oscar night.
There Will Be Blood was showing on only 2 screens on Jan 2, 2008 (!!) but expanded to 389 before nominations on the 22nd, and to a peak of 1600 by Oscar night.
I’m starting to wonder if those Top 5 will actually be out BP nominees with Frost / Nixon snubbed. I really think Wall-E could be nominated and all the tech noms for The Dark Knight could be enough to send it over the top as well.
Ryan–Do you know when the forums will be up again?
Didn’t know the forums were down. I’m afraid to venture into that neighborhood after dark. I’ll see if I can find out what’s up.
Zwingli the Miffed:
Benjamin Button is doing INCREDIBLY well in Box Office, definitely more than they expected in the beginning. As of today the movie grossed $68M approximately, it will definitely reach $130 minimum, don’t forget all the buzz the movie gonna get once it get nominated to 1000 Oscars, because I’m sure the movie is going to get a lot of technical nominations. Don’t forget overseas grosses, which will probably be twice as domestic, and DVD gross…
That is very excellent news Ziyad Abul. As our good buddy RRA has been reminding us for months, if for some reason Benjamin Button had not ignited, it might’ve meant the end of Fincher being granted so much creative freedom and massive budgets to play with. This success ensures Fincher’s credit for some time to come.
Did people really not expect Ben Button to do that well? It’s got Brad Pitt! And Cate Blanchett! And SHILOH! And a very interesting (though in my opinion, pointless) premise.
I hope Ziyad is right about Benjamin Button. I’d really like to see a Fincher movie finally rake in some serious cash in the box office, especially a movie like this.
Slumdog Millionaire is probably the most interesting film to watch develop in the box office though. I remember awardsdaily talking about Slumdog many months ago and I never thought it’d be a film that could break $100M in the box office. It’s a good thing that I like being pleasantly surprised.
Think about it, in only 9 days it already made $68M, which is almost half of it’s costs, yesterday Friday it made another $7M, you can double that for the Weekend so its probably going to be $82M by this Sunday, in only 11 days $82M for a Fincher movie is AMAZING. And it’s just the beginning of its Box-Office Career. BB is already a Box Office success!
It’s opening next week here finally! yay
What other films were in Oscar contention pre-nom? I vaguely remember Sweeney Todd having an outside chance at picture but it seemed like those 5 were fairly locked up, no?
People, Ben Button is far from a success so far. Yes, it’s doing well, thanks to the Holidays, but will it keep going? Gigantic budget, advertising and prints…The film needs to hit 400 million worldwide to break even.
i hope Milk will expand theatres, to make more money.
But Ryan, you forgot to put “Happy-go-lucky” on your 10 Possible Choices-list.
I´m not kidding, it will deliver “TDK” and “Wall-E” a neck-and-neck race for the fifth spot and has certainly a better shot than “The Wrestler”, which will be considered as a piece of great acting, not more.
I predict, if “Happy-go-lucky” gets the fifth spot instead of the overrated “TDK”, ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE on this site…
More info to back my theory:
” if for some reason Benjamin Button had not ignited, it might’ve meant the end of Fincher being granted so much creative freedom and massive budgets to play with. This success ensures Fincher’s credit for some time to come.”
Walking out of TCCOBB, my immediate reaction was that Fincher did this extremely shallow and pointless film as to insure his future of doing what he really wants to be doing. His odd q&a attitude further helps my theory.
It’s wrong to say that Button isn’t doing well. If they spent too much money to make it, that doesn’t erase the fact that a lot of people are paying to see it. I’m a little tired of the success of films being judged in comparison to their budgets. That’s a method for Hollywood accountants, not movie fans.
By the way, does the lukewarm-at-best box office for Frost/Nixon make it vulnerable to, say, Wall-E? I understand they are trying to wait until nominations to take it wider, but its Friday BO was under $3,000 per screen at just over 200 locations. While it was generally well-reviewed, it didn’t have the sort of critical support that demands nomination.
K., I wonder too.
If a movie about the most controversial sitting president in modern history with an exciting star-studded cast and perfect-storm timing of a thrilling election year release can only barely help W. break even with $20 million at the box-office, then where’s the audience for an story about another washed-up relic of history with pretty much zero Q-score?
Can even a Best Picture nomination salvage F/N’s lackluster showing in theaters — when it’s bound to be the obvious also-ran? There are so many other movies that might benefit more from an AMPAS charity donation of Oscar pity-nods.
No secret that I dislike the film as much as Sasha very graciously (and sincerely) appreciates it. But I think even the movie’s strongest supporters can think of 2 or 3 titles they’d be happier to see in the 5th place honorary “pauvre petite” slot.
For me, F/N is beginning to look like it stands for Favorite/Not.
I actually think Frost/Nixon’s flaw this year is that unlike last year older members in the Academy may actually be able to enjoy one of the other more. I mean Slumdog appeals to the same members of AMPAS that Frost/Nixon does and is it possible that it…takes Frost/Nixon’s voters?
Agree K., It’s also false to portray Fincher as somebody who needs a hit. Even his least profitable movie — Zodiac — earned back its budget worldwide, and David Fincher films typically gross 4-5 times their budget.
Panic Room cost $48 mil and churned up nearly $200 mil worldwide. Se7en cost $33 mil and pulled in $327 worldwide. Needless to say, no Fincher movie has ever earned $65 in it’s first week of release — as Benjo Button has done. It’s on track to do very very well.
michael, you write as if no other director in history ever wanted a hit so he could pursue his artsier ambitions. Film history is built on the shoulders of directors like that.
Like I said, Dominik, if Happy-Go-Lucky shows us some giggly get-up-and-go with the PGA or DGA, I’ll include it the next time I update this chart the day before nominations.
I had to cut off the list someplace, and 10 is how many toes I have. Just ran out of room for Happy-Go-Lucky, darn the luck.
“The film needs to hit 400 million worldwide to break even.”
Red, did you used to work for Lehman Brothers?
Haha, Ryan. Actually, I was thinking last night that most of the films in contention are hard sells, especially Slumdog. It isn’t Juno or Little Miss Sunshine where it was a cutesy all American story. At Christmas I brought it up to my entire family and not one person had even heard of it yet. So maybe the Academy can be counted upon to get the word out about it, maybe not. But Searchlight’s hard core campaigning, which is noticeably subdued this time around, appears to be putting Slumdog in the hard sell category. They are damned if they do, damned if they don’t – if they over sell it, it will become stale very fast to voters. If they undersell it, no one hears about it except those filmies in the circle.
I want to wait and see how it all goes post-noms before making any sweeping judgments on the season but if it all goes by plan, and if Dark Knight and/Wall-E are not among the Big Five, it will be the widest gap yet between Oscar and the general public.
“…if it all goes by plan, and if Dark Knight and/Wall-E are not among the Big Five, it will be the widest gap yet between Oscar and the general public.”
The really interesting thing this year, is how for once the major critics are in agreement with the general public about those top two films. The critics back us up. So if things go awry it will be the widest gap yet between Oscar and the popcult/topcrit coalition.
And if they are nominated it will be by far the smallest gap between Oscar and the popcult/topcrit coalition ever.
“…especially Slumdog. It isn’t Juno or Little Miss Sunshine where it was a cutesy all American story.”
I sigh in exasperation when Stephen Holt tells us many of his friends can’t understand what Cate Blanchett was saying “under all that latex” in the hospital scenes at the beginning of Benjamin Button. Have they not ever heard the whispery rasp of their own elderly friends?
But I have to regretfully acknowledge that a huge swath of the moviegoing public is simply not that accustomed to processing multicolored subtitles and frenetic editing at a single speed-reading glance. It’s nothing to do with intelligence or reading skills. It’s simply a matter of not having had the occasion to practice. My own mother, bless her heart, has handed me the phone to translate accented English into American English when she’s attempted to speak to overseas friends of mine on the phone.
Just this past week, I had a MoneyGram to pick up that required phoning the service center for validation. We stood there on hold for 10 oer 12 minutes waiting for the next agent to become available. When we got connected — at last! — the bank teller on my end abruptly hung up the phone. The problem? “They were speaking a foreign language,” she told me. I swear to god, that’s what she thought. She probably got an phone bank support person in Mumbai, and the vowels didn’t sound quite right to the local teller’s ears.
I know, for most of us, that’s just absurd. But it’s a problem, folks, trust me. You lucky people who live on the coasts or in diverse international cities will find it impossible to believe. But most of Slumdog Millionaire will sound like an alien language to some ears in the flyover states. I think it’s possible to overcome the problem, but there’s no point being naive and pretending the problem doesn’t exist.
Fresh week-end domestic totals:
CCoBB: $79,011,000
Slumdog: $28,779,000
Doubt: $18,730,000
Milk: $17,124,000
Rachel GM: $10,326,000
F/N: $6,330,000
Happy-G-L: $3,211,814
Wrestler: $1,756,000
RevRoad: $1,369,000
Rachel Getting Married stalled out at $10 mil, in dire need of some AMPAS CPR.
TCCoBB probably has more tickets sold than that 80 mil suggests. It’s a very long movie. It’s pretty impressive. I guess there’s a positive word of mouth on this movie.
Wasn’t me.
It’s interesting what you mention about the language thing, Ryan. I haven’t seen Slumdog but I was discussing Vicky Cristina Barcelona with some friends and the conclusions were interesting. Most of those who had seen it dubbed into Spanish found it sort of dull, while most of those who had seen it subtitled liked it more or just loved it. I haven’t seen the dubbed version but the dubbing must be really awful to provoke such opposed reactions to the same movie. As a curiosity, though you probably already know it, the guy who usually dubs Allen into Spanish has a cameo in the movie, with only one condition, to be silent (I don’t know who he is, though).
Anyway, I don’t want to spoil this thread (sorry, I didn’t know where else to post it), but as I’ve been an Allen fan for so long and this was shot in my country (it’s just a pity it wasn’t Madrid) I’ve been very excited to see the reactions to this film at the BO and to possible awards. Add a boring Sunday afternoon to the equation and here you are, the little research I’ve been doing comparing VCB scores on Metacritic and its BO figures with previous nominated/winning Allen’s works to try to predict its chances come Oscar nominations day (yes, I have copied the idea from what you do with the main contenders
)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona has become Allen’s fifth more succesful film at the US Box Office according to boxofficemojo. There are no overseas BO figures for many of his films, so I don’t know if that would change things drastically. VCB total gross is $74,602,279 right now, but for instance Bullets Over Broadway total (domestic) gross is just $13,383,747. One would figure this is much higher if you count international markets, but I couldn’t find the total gross.
Biggest grosses (domestic):
- Hannah & Her Sisters:
Metacritic score: 90
BO $40,084,041
Oscars: Won: screenplay, supp.actor (Michael Caine), supp. actress (Dianne Wiest)
Nods: Picture, director, art direction, editing.
- Manhattan:
Metacritic score: 82
BO $39,946,780
Oscar nods: screenplay, supporting actress (Mariel Hemingway)
- Annie Hall:
BO $38,251,425
Oscars: Wins: picture, director, screenplay & actress (Diane Keaton)
1 Nod: actor (Woody Allen).
- Match Point:
Metacritic score: 72
BO $23,151,529
Oscar nods: screenplay
- Vicky Cristina Barcelona:
Metacritic score: 70
BO: $22,766,098
Oscar nods?
Compared to those with similar box office sales and similar metacritic score (i.e. Match Point), VCB would seem doomed to receive just one nod. Considering that right now Cruz seems a lock for supporting actress, would that leave Allen out without a nod for the script?
Looking just at metacritic scores (because anyway all the rest are in lower places at the BO) those that have a similar score show a tendency to receive a couple of nods at least, specially in the screenplay and supporting acting categories:
Similar metacritic scores:
- Crimes and Misdemeanors: 77
Nods: director, screenplay and supporting actor (Martin Landau).
- The Purple Rose of Cairo: 75
Nods: screenplay
- Sweet & Lowdown: 70
Nods: actor (Penn) and supporting actress (Samantha Morton).
- Deconstructing Harry: 61
Nods: screenplay
- Mighty Aphrodite: 59
1 win: supporting actress (Mira Sorvino). 1 nod: screenplay
AMPAS members seem to love his writing above everything else, so I think it’s doubtful they won’t give him a nod for what they love most from his movies. No single Allen film that has been nominated for the Oscars has excluded a nod for the screnplay (See Match Point and Alice).
Other films receiving Oscar nods at least for the screenplay:
Interiors (5 nods), Broadway Danny Rose (2), Radio Days (2), Alice (1), Husbands and Wives (2),
and Bullets Over Broadway (1 win, 6 nods).
So, all this to come to the conclusion that VCB will receive two nominations if we’re to believe the numbers: supporting actress (Cruz) and original screenplay. As much as I’d like to see it getting more love, the tendency seems to be stuck on two nods. Some love for Rebecca Hall would be great, but with such crowded category I think it’s quite unlikely.
I’m glad to see Ryan is agreeing with me this morning. I’m OK with Frost/Nixon. I thought it had slightly more good things than bad. But I don’t know why voters would want to see it nominated ahead of Wall-E, ofr instance, when Wall-E has greater And wouldn’t a “pity-nom” for Langella, at least justifiable, be enough to get whatever bump it’s going to get?
My question about Rachel was always, why didn’t they go wider quicker, when Hathaway was everywhere in October and the film had momentum? It was one of the most mindnumbingly slow rollouts I’ve ever seen. At one point, the Canadian film Passchendaele was in more theaters than Rachel Getting Married. Everyone here remembers Passchendaele, right? But maybe they figure they’ll make the greatest impact after the noms and wanted to stretch it out. I don’t know, though.
Wall-E has far greater box office and critical support ….
finishing my thought in the above post.
Ryan,
I get your point, but if Minnesota is considered a flyover state, I’ll just stick up for our smaller cities and towns that are becoming increasingly diverse and culture rich. Folks are getting used to hearing accents different than their own (i.e., they all don’t sound like Marge Gunderson any more).
If Slumdog doesn’t sell well I’d guess it has more to do with the gritty reality of the film. It also ‘feels’ like an international film, but then that didn’t hurt the popularity of “Life is Beautiful” did it?
I agree, HaroldsMaude. I’m glad the country is being more accustomed to diversity, and I’m happy to hear you live somewhere progressive. That’s why I was careful to phrase what I said in these terms: “Slumdog Millionaire will sound like an alien language to some ears in the flyover states.”
Obviously some ears are further along the path to cross-cultural enlightenment than others. Just look at Spock.
It’s hard to tell what our ears are looking like in Minnesota these days. It’s too damn cold!
“Red, did you used to work for Lehman Brothers?”
[...] Ryan Adams points out, it is a very rare movie that finds gold without making bank. But David Poland has a theory about the contenders playing peek-a-boo with audiences: It [...]
I’m going to reply to Iggy’s terrific analysis, but I’m going to do it in Ryan’s new thread…I guess I should’ve just done it instead of talking about it.
In the words of Tuco the Ugly, “If you’re going to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”
I did not know, that it can be real..
It’s so inetresting for us! Thanx!
5 февраля компанией «Полисет-СБ» будет представлена комплексная система безопасности под названием «Экспресс». Данная демонстрация пройдет в Москве в Выставочном комплексе «Крокус Сити», ведь именно здесь в это время и будет проводиться выставка «Технологии безопасности», тематике которой «Экспресс» полностью соответствует.
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