Big post-Oscar revenue bumps at the box office probably aren’t in the envelopes this year, studio distribution executives say. But with the bulk of the major contenders having moved onto their DVD window, home entertainment sales should get a sizable lift.
“From a box-office standpoint, I don’t think that for a lot of these films, there’s going to be much benefit from Oscar acclaim,” said one studio distribution chief. “But I definitely think it will help out in home entertainment.”
The winner of six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, Summit Entertainment’s “The Hurt Locker” is already a prime example.
Having completed its North American theatrical run in November, the Kathryn Bigelow-directed war film was re-introduced into 274 theaters on Oscar weekend, adding $439,000 to a doemstic gross that now stands at $14.7 million.
But the Oscar favorite's real momentum right now is in the home entertainment market, where "Hurt Locker" has already seen a big spike in the run-up to the awards.
More than 710,000 disc and digital units of the film have been sold, and it has generated about 3.2 million DVD rentals, according to Summit.
Company officials specifically note the movie's “55” sales index in the home entertainment market.
This number is a ratio, derived comparing each 55,000 million DVD and download units sold of a film, and comparing it to each $1 million worth of box office it generated. Generally speaking, an index in the 30 range is considered very good.
“‘Hurt Locker’ has already benefitted from the Oscars big-time,” noted one rival studio official.
But historically speaking, that bump pales to some of the bigger post-Oscar spikes over the last 30 years.
Winning Best Picture in 1988 in front of a U.S. television audience of more than 42 million viewers, “The Last Emperor” would soon experience what would become the biggest Oscar bump of all time.
Having been released the previous November, the Bernardo Bertolucci-directed film had grossed just over $25 million at the domestic box office when it won the top prize at the Chevy Chase-hosted Oscar telecast on April 11, 1988.
With distributor Columbia Pictures immediately upping its exhibition from 460 to 877 theaters, the film experienced a 306 percent bump the following weekend, taking in $18.6 million, over 42 percent of its gross, after the Oscars were handed out.
While studio officials aren’t looking for those kinds of numbers this year, they don’t sell short the benefit of having clips to their films shown multiple times at the Academy Awards multiple times.
“Unequivocally yes,” responded Fox executive VP of distribution Chris Aronson, when asked if he thinks there’s significant audience left who hasn’t seen “Avatar.” The movie, which has grossed over $712 million in North America since December, was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture (it won three, including production design, cinematography and visual effects). And it remains domestically distributed in 661 3D locations, despite being pushed aside this weekend by the release of Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland.”
