In this morning's roundup of Oscar news 'n' notes from around the web, boxoffice figures intersect with awards hopes.
After a nice run through film festivals, industry screenings and the like, "The King's Speech" has finally been seen by regular paying customers – and a whole lot of them paid over the weekend. Peter Knegt at indieWIRE, which always pays close attention to limited releases, runs down the numbers: the best per-screen average of the year at "a stunning $87,448" (beating "The Kids Are All Right" by more than $17,000), which makes it the 17th biggest per-screen average of all time … and, strangely, the sixth biggest if you leave out the animated Disney movies that dominate that particular chart because they used to debut in huge venues with inflated ticket prices. "The King's Speech" made do with four regular movie theaters, and the usual (steep) ticket prices. (indieWIRE)
Speaking of money, Sasha Stone trots out an Oscar truism: "popular films that are also well-reviewed tend to do well in the Best Picture race." For the year to date, that means things look good for "Toy Story 3" and "Inception," both top-grossers at $414 million and $292 million, respectively. She has the distant Best Picture longshot "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1" (left) in the third spot on her list at $220 million and counting, followed by "How to Train Your Dragon," "Shutter Island," "The Town" and "The Social Network." I suspect that top seven will contain three, maybe four nominees … (Awards Daily)
The collection of Oscar pundits who contribute to Gold Derby's roundup have had their predictions updated, and "The King's Speech" is still hanging onto the top spot, followed by "The Social Network," "127 Hours," "Inceptiion" and "Toy Story 3." In other categories, Colin Firth has a commanding lead for Best Actor and Annette Bening a slight one for Best Actress. In racetrack odds, that puts "King's Speech" at 9/5 and "Social Network" at 7/3. (Gold Derby)
The British magazine Sight & Sound jumps the gun with a list of the year's best films, obviously compiled before its 85 participating critics had a chance to see everything. But as Guy Lodge makes clear with his rundown of the print-only feature, this isn’t the kind of list that needs to wait for last-minute Hollywood releases: with the honored films including "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," "The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu" and Godard's apparently impenetrable "Film Socialisme," this is pretty austere stuff. All the more impressive, then, that the film in the number one spot is David Fincher's "The Social Network," the only major-studio work in a lineup that also includes Mike Leigh's "Another Year," Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone" and Olivier Assayas' "Carlos." "That David Fincher’s film should have won out in a poll traditionally dominated by world arthouse cinema suggests it could well be the most-favored title in next month’s avalanche of US critics’ awards," he writes, "positioning it as the discerning voter’s alternative to more milquetoast bait in the Oscar race."
