In the old days, box office most definitely mattered. There was no way a movie could lose money and win Best Picture. The question is, does it still matter? Are there factors that might mitigate a loss, like good intentions? Can the new voters, 3,000 of them, who aren’t exactly invested in the film industry, ignore practical realities like the costs of making and releasing movies?
I don’t know. But it’s worth asking the question. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I know where the bodies are buried. Many of the newcomers who now dominate the Oscar race haven’t yet learned the hard lessons that many of us old-timers already know, having had to learn them over the past 20 years. One of those is definitely the box office.
The Oscar Expert and Brother bro have declared the race over — but if no one knows how much money the film will make or if it will be a loss then there is no way to predict whether it will win. It matters, even if everyone out there writing about the Oscars is ignoring it.
There is a scenario where it generates significant numbers internationally, perhaps coming close to breaking even with the $130-$140 budget. Maybe that will help. But think about this. Only one movie that has ever won Best Picture cost more than One Battle After Another and that was Titanic.
Here is the chart from The-Numbers:
I don’t know enough about how to analyze the box office to determine if One Battle After Another will perform better than its initial $22 million opening haul. It seems to me there is a bit of a conspiracy of silence on this one in the trades. Maybe because they were hit hard on Twitter when they said Sinners wouldn’t make back their money. Or they want it to do well and they don’t want to hurt its chances. I don’t know. But what I do know is that it’s kind of crazy to talk about it winning Best Picture without figuring in the cost and everyone out there already knowing about it.
It is unheard of for a movie with a budget of $130-140 million to win Best Picture, unless it reaches the $400-$500 million range. That’s at least historically true. So I guess perception will be everything. If the film can somehow reach $140 globally, they can spin that away from the box office.
When Killers of the Flower Moon came into the race with a $200 million budget, the question of box office mattered less because it was a movie destined for Apple TV or streaming. Still, that budget loomed over it and probably made it less of an alluring film to award Best Picture. Oscar voters like movies that didn’t cost much and made money.
Here are the Best Picture winners that cost over $100 million since 1964, from The-Numbers:
Titanic – $200 million / domestic over $600 million/2 billion globally (to date)
Gladiator – $103 million / domestic $187 million/$451 million globally
Oppenheimer – $100 million $330 domestic/$976 globally
And that’s it, friends. So for One Battle After Another to win Best Picture, it will have to be the second most costly Best Picture winner in history, behind Titanic. Can it get to these kinds of returns at the box office, either domestically or internationally? Maybe.
The only film that has ever won Best Picture and lost money was Nomadland, which was impacted by COVID, and CODA, which wasn’t released in theaters. Otherwise, even when it was close, the movie still made money, as seen with Braveheart, which cost $72 million and grossed $75 million domestically, with an additional $200 million internationally.
On the other hand, do the international voters care? Maybe they don’t.
It is difficult to gauge the response because reactions have been so polarizing. The audience score sits stubbornly at 85, so the film is either not being review-bombed or else RT is guarding it and preventing that from happening. Either way, here is a sampling of how it divides:
The film is inspiring passionate reactions in either direction, which is to be expected from a polarizing movie. Those kinds of movies can win — like Everything, Everywhere All At Once, but until we see the box office returns, I’d say at the moment it’s a slightly harder sell, especially compared to, say, Sinners, which might have cost $90 mil but made back its money.
Just saying.
