Saturday, February 23, 2008

Oscar and box office

One idea that seems out there that is, to me, flat out wrong is that nobody has seen any of the films nominated for Best Picture. While it's true most are not making Pirates money, most of them have performed reasonably well for adult fare, particularly when compared to budget. These films domestically are making back two to three times their cost, at least, which is hard to do with a $200 million summer monster.

Juno is a hit by any standard, up to $127 million on a budget of $6.5 million. Phenomenal performance. No Country for Old Men is over a very healthy $60 million. Michael Clayton is hovering near $50 million, as is, quietly, Atonement. There Will Be Blood, the latest release, is somewhere in the $20s, probably the only one not in the respectable range. And these are only the domestic numbers. Hollywood-Elsewhere poster JD uses the worldwide numbers to further illustrate the point.

The point is that while these are not summer blockbusters, the idea that these are films are box office underperformers that no one has seen is basically bunk.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

TWBB is 31.6

Anonymous said...

That was domestic

K. Bowen said...

Last I saw, it was at 20 something, but I shall take your word.

K. Bowen said...

The more I think about it, the box office this year is probably higher than the box office of last year's nominees. Just off the top of my head, The Departed made 130, roughly where Juno is right now, and it's still going. Little Miss Sunshine made 80. NCfOM is at 65 or something. I don't remember The Queen's box office. I would guess that Letters from Iwo Jima made significantly less than TWBB's current $30 million. What was the fifth nominee?

And I'm absolutely certain that this year's box office is better than the 2006 AA nominees. (Brokeback, Capote, Good Night, Munich, Crash, etc.