Now that all of the films have been released and are making money, it’s time to once again tally up the scores. How much have they made? How much did they cost? How many negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes? Let’s take a quick look.
1. Rotten Tomatoes
The best way to measure critic reviews is not to look at the positive number at Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes. The reason is that the demographics and names on those sites keep changing. There isn’t any kind of consistency. We look at two things. Usually the negative number on Rotten Tomatoes is a pretty good indicator of how many people hated the movie. The more people who hated the movie, the higher the negative number, the less the chances for winning Best Picture on a preferential ballot.
Let’s look at the scores of the films since the Academy switched up to a preferential ballot.
2009 – The Hurt Locker 245/6
2010 – The King’s Speech 247/14
2011 – The Artist 267/7
2012 – Argo 287/13
2013 – 12 Years a Slave 280/11
2014 – Birdman 241/21
Birdman’s is the most divisive with 21, but even that isn’t that divisive, honestly, not with 241 in the can. If we look at the five films this year with a Best Director nomination we see:
Spotlight 184/6
Room 170/6
Mad Max: Fury Road 323/10
The Big Short 175/24
The Revenant 177/42
It really looks like Spotlight is in the sweet spot because it has both SAG Awards Ensemble nomination and PGA recognition. Room did not register with the PGA or DGA so if it won Best Picture it would be a surprise. The Big Short is sort of in the zone but pushing it. Mad Max is definitely in the zone but it, along with The Revenant, does not have a SAG Awards Ensemble nomination. But 42 negatives for a Best Picture winner would be unheard of. This could be the difference, though, between critic voters and the industry voters. They are very different animals. The critics were a tad resistant toward The Revenant for some reason, which could account for the elevated negative number. On the other hand, as you can see above, this is a pretty reliable stat.
Now let’s look at budget and box office, not that this matters as much anymore.
The Hurt Locker 14/15 million
The King’s Speech 14 million/138 million
The Artist 15 million/44 million
Argo 44 million / 136 million
12 Years a Slave 20 million / 56 million
Birdman 18 million / 42 million
As you can see, their preference for cost is pretty clear. You have to go back to 2006’s The Departed to find a film that cost a lot and earned a little back. The Departed cost 90 mil and made 132 mil. Its Rotten Tomatoes number was only 24 negatives against 238 reviews.
Box-office totals by the end of this weekend might look something like:
Spotlight 20 million / 35 million (est. and counting)
The Big Short 28 million / 50 million (est. and counting)
Mad Max Fury Road 150 million / 153 million
The Revenant 135 million / 90 million (est. and counting)
Box office won’t really be an issue with any film except perhaps Mad Max, which is in The Departed territory. The Revenant will continue to make money, all the way up to at least 150 mil and perhaps more.
Argo and The King’s Speech are really their favorite kind of Best Picture winner. Low budget, high return. In recent years, the Academy aren’t big fans of lots of money being spent, I’ve noticed, except in rare exceptions. They seem to like movies that cost between 15 and 25 million.
It is unfortunate that The Martian never got a chance because it really does do well on all of these markers. It cost $108 but made $226 and counting. It only has 20 negatives on Rotten Tomatoes up against 282 reviews. It is way in the zone. It would be very funny if it turned out to be the surprise winner, although with someone other than Ridley Scott winning Best Director, the way Argo went down. I don’t envision that happening because obviously the Martian has no SAG Awards nominations.
In the end, barring a great big surprise at the Producers Guild, I think we’re still down to Spotlight vs. The Big Short, the only two films with SAG Awards Ensemble, DGA, PGA, Oscar screenplay/editing/directing/acting. One film about a team of journalists exposing pedophile priests and the other about a team of Wall Street players discovering fraud on Wall Street, trying to warn someone before it was too late, and failing. And so it goes.