They may be hits with Oscar voters, but this year’s Best Picture nominees are not exactly standouts at the box office.
Instead of tentpole movies like “Inception” and “Toy Story 3,” the Academy selected critical favorites such as “Hugo” and “Tree of Life" as contenders for its big prize. (Respectively, they have brought in just $55.8 million and $13 million at the domestic box office so far.)
Collectively, the nine Best Picture nominees announced on Tuesday have brought in $517.2 million domestically, according to Rentrak. That’s more than a quarter-billion dollars less than 2009 contender “Avatar” brought in domestically.
In fact, “The Help” is the only best picture nominee to gross more than $100 million in the United States. DreamWorks’ civil rights drama racked up $170 million – more than the next two highest money-earners, “War Horse” and “Moneyball,” combined.
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That may not be a bad thing. The nominations may give many of the contenders a second life at the box office. And the movie that most Oscar-watchers consider the favorite, "The Artist," will benefit most of all.
"The Artist" came in second to "Hugo" in nominations, with 10 to the latter's 11 nods, but the movie is much earlier in its box office run than 3D "Hugo."
“ 'The Artist’ will benefit maybe more than any film in the history of Oscar nominations,” Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations, told TheWrap Tuesday. “Unlike ‘The King’s Speech,’ where a speech impediment is one thing, having no speaking whatsoever in your film presents a real test of how to market it to middle America.”
Because the Weinstein Co. can now shout "Best Picture nominee” in its advertising, the studio will be able to significantly add to the black-and-white film’s $12 million domestic gross.
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The company is expanding the movie from 662 locations to 900 this Friday, Erik Lomis, Weinstein’s chief of distribution, told TheWrap on Tuesday. After the movie won a Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy last weekend, the company plotted the expansion.
Weinstein plans to pad that number by another 500 locations or so over the next week.
“Hopefully, ‘The Artist’ will break through to the commercial audience now,” Lomis said. “We know that it plays great and we know that it holds in like a rock.”
Likewise, “The Descendants,” Fox Searchlight’s George Clooney-led dramatic comedy, has grossed roughly $51 million since its Nov. 16 debut, and Fox is expanding it to 1,900 screens.
“When we came in on Monday and exhibition saw the huge bump, it got a lot more theaters to come in,” Sheila DeLoach, Fox Searchlight’s executive vice president of distribution, told TheWrap. “That’s probably due to the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture and Best Actor, and the fact that George Clooney and [director] Alexander Payne had been on quite a bit of television shows.”
