Oscar films fail to get box office bump

Patrick Goldstein has an interesting article about this year's box office trends.  Revenues are on the rise this year... so long as you're not up for an Oscar.

This year’s box office is booming, except, gulp, for Oscar movies. The 2012 grosses have been surprisingly strong, up nearly 18% year to date compared with 2011. But if you think any of that is thanks to people rushing out to see the best picture contenders ahead of Sunday’s Academy Awards show, think again.


[...] It’s hard to make a strong case that many of the nominated films were helped in any significant way by the Oscar nominations. Even “The Descendants,” which has continued to have a strong showing at the box office, had its biggest grossing weekend at Thanksgiving, not after the nominations were announced. The only films you can argue that have really benefited from Oscar-related box office are “The Artist” and “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” though both films have spent a healthy chunk of their box office gains in nonstop Oscar advertising.

You might recall I recently did a comparative analysis of how this year's nominees performed at the box office versus the films nominated for 1991's Academy Awards.  As we saw, it wasn't a favorable comparison.

Let's throw this down right now - I don't want to see any "Strawman" arguments that accuse me of saying that box office always equals quality.  It doesn't.  However, it is a good way to get a sense of how many eyes have seen a film.  In studying the long-term trends on the Oscar movies and comparing them to the other releases, we can also see there's an enthusiasm gap.  Even after the nominations raised awareness and acted as a public advertisement of these films' critical acclaim, audiences still haven't rushed to the multiplex.

So what's going on here?  What are Safe House, Chronicle and The Vow doing right that the Oscar films are doing wrong?  Safe House and The Vow both only dropped less than 36% at the box office last weekend.  That's a pretty good hold that suggests not only did the marketing and the concept put assess in the seats, but the word-of-mouth was good enough to draw in a big Week 2 audience as well.

Basically, the studios seem to be releasing a good percentage of films that are not only appealing to audiences, but are also leaving them satisfied.

So why is it that when it comes to the nine Best Picture nominees, the raw numbers make Hollywood look like Gretchen Wiener determined to make "fetch" happen?  You could point to polarizing reviews on Extremely Loud, or some of the backlash of War Horse deflating those returns.  The Help had a healthy run earlier.  Midnight in Paris also performed extremely well for a Woody Allen film prior to the nominations, though it's surprising that it didn't get much of a second wind after the nominees.

But why hasn't Moneyball been a smash despite strong reviews, nominations, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill?  Why is The Descendants still lagging?  Is it simply that seeing these films is akin to "eating one's vegetables?"  Are there simply too many nominees?  Or is it as simple as the fact that the bigger hits this year are largely escapist in nature and audiences are looking to feel good rather than endure drama?

I ask because anyone looking to make a career out of writing needs to know the kind of market that their material exists in.  I rather liked The Descendants and Moneyball.  In particular, I thought the latter was an impressive achievement in taking a concept that could have been dry and non-visual and finding a way into the material through the characters.  So if you were to play in that same screenwriting ballpark, how could you assure a buyer that your script would have more commercial appeal?

If you haven't seen Moneyball, what's stopping you?  It's not silent or in black-and-white.  It's not about death.  It's not by a controversial director.  It's not from a director who's gotten attacked for not making movies as good as he used to.  And it's not a period piece either.  I've run through every cliched excuse that would keep a mainstream audience from a critically acclaimed film and I can't find any reason why Moneyball shouldn't be doing better.  If any of the nominees should have gotten an easy box office bump, it would have been this one.

Or is the problem just that these acclaimed films are speaking to a smaller and smaller percentage of society?  Are they movies for people who don't go to the movies?

Last year's spec market was huge and the start of this year looks promising as well.  A lot of material will probably sell this year - so how will this box office trend dictate what the studios are looking to buy?  I harp on box office from time to time because if you want to be a working writer, you can't pretend that your art exists in a vacuum.  You should study the business as well as the craft, and statistics like this are exactly the sort of thing that a smart writer should be able to find a way to capitalize on.

And the Best Picture Oscar goes to... "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol"

I've complained before about the relatively unexciting list of Oscar nominees for Best Picture, and going along with that, there's been a clear enthusiasm gap associated with this year's awards.  Surely, every year there are complaints that the Academy has gotten too arty or too snobby.  In fact, most pundits trot out a couple common examples of the Oscars "getting it wrong" in the past, presumably as a way of urging the audience not to get too bent out of shape.

At the top of that list is Annie Hall and Woody Allen beating out Star Wars and George Lucas for "Best Picture" and "Best Director" in 1977.  I know there's going to be a temptation to take a cheap shot at Lucas based on post-prequel hatred, but you have to remember that in the context of 1977, what he did was incredibly revolutionary.  Star Wars changed the face of film and cast a much longer shadow than Annie Hall.  Seemingly the Academy valued intimacy over scope.

And yet, in 1982, E.T. lost to Gandhi.  An epic bio-pic trumped what was then the most popular movie of all time.  E.T. was emotional, it was accepted by a wide audience and it had heart. Gandhi was... "important."  When was the last time you got the urge to watch Gandhi?  How many of you even own it on DVD?

Here's what really irks me about this film snobbery - it values a few aspects of filmmaking while completely discounting the artistry of the others.  It's not "Best Picture due to Most Emotional Performances," "Best Picture that Tackles a Social Issue and Reduces It to a Simplistic, Insulting Thesis or Solution," or "Best Picture due to Most Character Driven Screenplay."  It's "Best Picture." Period.  But I guess if you can make an audience cry or make them feel something "deep" like, "Wow, that was really bold to say that 'racism is bad and hurtful,'" it's enough to negate hours of blood and sweat spent elsewhere.

Popcorn movies.  That's what they call films that never will get Oscars simply because they dared to be popular.  True, often these films have serious deficiencies in story and acting.  (Paging Michael Bay.)  But what about the films that are grand adventures, that take action to new heights, propelled by a structurally strong script?  The performances might not contain some overwrought emotional catharsis, but you know what, sometimes it's just as difficult to keep characters consistent and compelling even without the crutch of letting the actor play a dibilitating mental disease or have to come to terms with the loss of a loved one.

Because it's really hard to cry on cue.  Like hard.

You know what else is hard? Dangling a mile high in the air, tethered to a building while a helicopter swoops above you to get vertigo inducing shots.  If that's so easy, you run down the outside of a mile-high glass building - WITHOUT the aid of a stunt double.  Oh, and you have to stay in character completely which in this case means not losing your shit because "HOLY FUCK I'M A MILE ABOVE THE GROUND!"



Yeah, that's just as easy as acting befuddled or drawing on a memory of a childhood pet's death so you can shed a tear.

What Tom Cruise gives in Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol is a performance no less consistent than Meryl Steep in the Acclaimed Movie I Didn't See or what Gary Oldman did in The Movie I Saw And Thought Was Okay But Probably Never Will Need to See Again.  Cruise says his lines, he stays in character and he makes us believe Ethan Hunt is real.  He does what the script asks of him and he brings some of his own persona to it.  Ditto for all of the supporting cast.

Now you can argue that Cruise didn't deserve a Best Actor nomination.  I admit, it was a very competitive field this year.  Then again, I don't see Christopher Plummer and Max Von Sydow doing this...

That should have been a full-page ad in Variety with the caption "For Your Consideration, Motherfucker."

But enough about Cruise, let's talk about the movie itself.  It's visually stunning, both in the angles and in the staging of action - so that point goes to the director, Brad Bird.  Oh, and did I mention this was his first live-action picture?  Not bad for a neophyte, eh?

The story moves well, due to the solid structure that motivates the characters and the action scenes.  It's also really well-paced, - credit to the writers and the editors there.

Also with the "visually-stunning" point - the visual and special effects are virtually flawless.  Kudos to all the technical teams involved.

And acting-wise, was there anyone who wasn't convincing in their role?  Down to the last man, they embodied their parts and did what was asked of them.

I look at everything that goes into making a film - particularly a film of this genre - and I struggle to see any glaring flaws.  You might say, "Well, the characters just weren't as deep as The Descendants."  Okay, fair enough...

But The Descendants had far less complex stunt/action scenes.  The story had far fewer turns it had to sell.  So should it get a pass simply because it was technically less ambitions that M:I - GP?  Why can't Ghost Protocol get the same pass for its character arcs being less ambitious?

"Best Picture" means the whole picture - everything.  And if more popcorn films got nominated, I wouldn't bitch about this because, hey, luck of the draw.  This year we gave greater weight to the emotional than the technical.  But that's not how it works.  It seems you can entirely reinvent filmmaking on a technical level, attempt spectacle that's never been seen before, hold an audience at the edge of their seat for 2+ hours and in the end, all some ABC Family actress has to do is cry underwater to make all of that irrelevant.

Are The Artist and The Descendants really the best and most impressive examples of filmmaking this year? Or are they the "safe" choices that one can laud without fearing the loss of some kind of manufactured credibility?  Brad Bird and Tom Cruise delivered a roller-coaster ride of filmmaking where the story was propelled by some solid lead characters and a really strong cast.

No gold statue will ever convince me that is any less of an achievement than any of the nine nominees for Best Picture.

Tuesday Talkback: Oscar Fever

I'm hearing a fair amount of talk in the Hollywood bubble about how people just aren't enthusiastic at all about this year's Oscars.  There's a fear that this will translate to lower ratings.  The theory is that if "insiders" are apathetic about the Oscar nominees this year, the "average Joes" must be even less invested.

So I'll put it to you - how much DO you care about the Oscars this year?  Is anyone having Oscar parties?

And what's everyone think about having Billy Crystal back this year?  Are you eager to see what he does, or is his routine too familiar after so many visits?  Heck, does the host make that much of a difference for you as a viewer?

So sound off.  I'd love to hear where everyone stands.

You're not imagining it - the Oscars have gotten lamer and more out of step

Twenty years ago the Best Picture nominees at the Academy Awards were an Animated family film, a tearjerker drama based on a best selling novel, a compelling drama based on one of the most significant moments of the 20th Century, and a period crime drama about the rise of a mobster. Those films went home empty-handed, losing to an intense serial killer procedural-thriller based on a popular best seller.

(For those too lazy to go to Wikipedia, the films were Beauty & The Beast, The Prince of Tides, JFK, Bugsy, and The Silence of the Lambs, respectively.)

Looking at the offerings in yesterday's nominations, I feel confident in saying that not only would the staid squares who comprise the voting members of the Academy not give The Silence of the Lambs the top prize, they'd probably never let it be nominated in the first place.  For that matter, I'd be shocked if Beauty & The Beast would be nominated either.

The Silence of the Lambs basically invented the serial killer genre.  Without it, there might not have been a Se7en, and without either of those films, there'd probably be far fewer serial killer thrillers made today.  You can feel the influence of The Silence of the Lambs across many films and even TV shows such as Criminal Minds. It wasn't just a well-made film, it became a part of pop culture.  You can toss off a Hannibal Lector one-liner and be pretty confidant that someone around you will recognize it.

Can you say that about any of the nominees this year?

This year's list of nominees is: The Help, Moneyball, War Horse, Midnight in Paris, Hugo, The Descendants, Tree of Life, The Artist, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Six of the nine are based on novels, but unlike the 1991 slate, the genres are significantly weighted towards drama.  In 1991, The Descendants probably would have been a dark horse like The Prince of Tides was - today, it's the only one that can challenge the presumed front-runner of The Artist.

I don't get the feeling that any of those films will penetrate popular culture.  There are some well-made films in there, but is there anything that's iconic or defining in the way that The Silence of the Lambs or JFK was?  That list is about as un-mainstream as you can get.  There's no Harry Potter, no Bridesmaids, no The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, no The Muppets - all well-reviewed films that were generally strong entries in their respective genres.  The variety of 1991 has given way to a nomination slate that seems to scoff at anything popular.  

To back that up, let's look at some domestic gross figures

Beauty & the Beast - $145 million domestic gross
The Prince of Tides - $74 million domestic gross
JFK - $70 million domestic gross
Bugsy - $49 million domestic gross
The Silence of the Lambs - $130 million

Five films that averaged $93 million - in 1991 dollars!  Two of the five films (40% of the nominated slate) crossed the $100 million mark.  If we adjusted for inflation, look at how that changes.

In 2012 dollars via BoxOfficeMojo.com:
Beauty & The Beast - $277 million
The Prince of Tides - $143 million
JFK - $134 million
Bugsy - $93 million
The Silence of the Lambs - $246 million

Average gross: $178 million in 2012 dollars

There are nine films that are nominated this year, and only one - ONE - made more than $75.5 million.  (That's about 11% of the slate.)  Their average gross comes out to $57 million.  Only one of the five 1991 nominees took in less than that in 1991 dollars.

Something has to change with the way the Oscar nominees are selected.  The films are significantly out of step with audience tastes.  If anything, the choices are even more conservative than they were two decades ago.  Granted, the Oscars have always had this problem, overlooking ground-breaking films like Citizen Kane and Star Wars in favor of more conventional choices.  But at least those two films got nominated in their respective years.  This year, some of the worthy mainstream choices didn't even get that far with almost twice as many slots available!

With results like this, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences membership comes off like a collection of film snobs more concerned with with rewarding what they see as "serious films" instead of recognizing that good film can encompass a wide spectrum of work.  These nominees aren't a good representation of release year 2011 - but merely a small segment of that calendar.

Today's filmmakers deserve Oscar voters unafraid to cast a ballot for the modern equivalent of The Silence of the Lambs.  The Academy Award is an honor that should be open to all films - not just the "important" and "safe" ones.

UPDATE: a since-deleted comment suggested that I was being unfair by not allowing for the possibility that the nominated films would see a bump in attendance due to their nominations. That's a point covered by this article.


Just earning an Oscar nom can mean big bucks for studios. Best picture nominees that did not win the award earned on average $17.7 million once they were nominated before the awards show, and then another $4 million after the show, according to IBISWorld.


And of course a box office win yields a bigger boost—an average of $27.5 million between nominations and the awards show, and another $15.4 million after winning an Oscar.

I should point out that 2010 Best Picture Winner The Hurt Locker only got a bump of about $4 million from the time of its nomination through the end of its theatrical run, while last year's The King's Speech pretty much doubled its $57 million gross during the six weeks leading up to the Oscars, and then left its run with $134 million.

Just for comparison, The Silence of the Lambs wasn't even IN theaters during or after the nominations, having opened the prior February.  It spent its first five weeks at number one in the box office, taking in $68.8 million in that time frame alone!

Tuesday Talkback: Oscar nominations

Oscar nominations will likely have been announced by the time most of you get around to reading this, so let's get some reactions.  What surprised you the most?  Which film deserved to be nominated but wasn't?  Which nominations were the most richly deserved?

And perhaps most importantly of all - how many of the nominated films have you seen? I still have way too many front-runners to see.

Have seen:
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
The Descendants
Drive
Moneyball

Haven't seen (among many others):
Midnight in Paris
The Artist
Hugo
My Week With Marilyn
Young Adult
The Help
War Horse

For whatever reason, this isn't a year where I've been compelled to check out most of the front-runners. Anyone else feel that way?

Tuesday Talkback: Do awards and nominations matter?

Sunday night the Golden Globes were presented, with The Artist taking home Best Picture in the Musical or Comedy category, while The Descendants grabbed that trophy in the Drama catagory.  The Oscar nominations are due to come out next week, all of which me to ask...

Does any of this mean anything to you?

How much effect do the various award nominations and wins affect your viewing habits?  For me, it has some impact, but not a great deal.  Most years I end up seeing 3 or 4 of the Best Picture nominees prior to the Oscars.  I'll confess that there are years where I've sometimes sought out films out of obligation to remain "in the loop" more than out of genuine, passionate interest.  But then, in many ways, it's my job to stay abreast of current films as much as possible.

I assume there are a fair number of you who aren't currently working in the industry.  Will an Oscar nomination for a particular film make you more likely to see it?  Or are your viewing habits consistently dictated by your own tastes?

"The Oscar Goes to...." and "Gimmie my money back!"

We're halfway through the year in movies, so let's do a little experiment.

Oscar voters are often accused of having short memories, as, let's face it, it's a lot harder to remember back 12 months than it is six months. True, many studios play to this by putting their mostly likely contenders at the end of the year. Still, there are always a few worthy contenders that somehow sneak in among the blockbusters, rom-coms and Kevin James movies destined for a long run on your local Southwest Airlines jets.

So what films from the first six months of 2011 deserve not to be forgotten when Harvey Weinstein starts purchasing Oscar buzz as if it were frozen orange futures in Trading Places?

Related to that... let's be honest, there's a lot of crap that gets shoveled into the local multiplexes in the first half of the year. I've heard there are some stars who have refunded money to disgruntled viewers. George Clooney has supposed given several fans their money back for Batman & Robin. George, I'll let you be on that one. Batman & Robin was a gift from the comedy gods. But you're not off the hook for Ocean's Twelve.

So what 2011 movie do you want your money back for, and what star do you fantasize about accosting on the street or in a restaurant in order to get back your $12?

Tuesday Talkback: Do the Oscars influence you?

With the Oscars behind us, I have to ask, do the Oscars really influence your viewing choices?

I'm not one of those people who makes it a point to see everything that's nominated. If a movie has gotten a lot of positive buzz and seems to be the sort of film that I might enjoy, then I'll certainly go out of my way to find it. Sometimes if the buzz is so overwhelming, I might venture outside of my comfort zone, which is why I made it a point to see The Hurt Locker.

But I did not see, and have zero interest in seeing Precious, A Serious Man, and An Education. I don't care how well-crafted Precious is, it's not my kind of film.

Last year I had only seen Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon. I note with some amusement that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has spent a year on my Netflix list and has been continually pushed to the bottom by films I'm more interested in seeing. Nothing about The Reader looked appealing to me, and frankly I had no interest in Milk either.

Most years I end up seeing at least three of the nominees, but rarely does a win by a film I haven't seen end up motivating me to go check it out.

There have been plenty of recent cases where the Best Picture Oscar went to a film I saw that I was either indifferent to (A Beautiful Mind, Chicago) or utterly hated (Crash, No Country for Old Men, Gladiator). With an average like that, I don't let the Oscars influence my viewing habits.

Do you?

Why "The Hurt Locker" shouldn't encourage you to write about the Iraq War

Those who follow me on Twitter probably heard me express this opinion a few weeks ago, but it bears repeating in the blog proper - just because The Hurt Locker has gotten a lot of press, and picked up the Oscar for Best Picture last night, don't expect that to start a spate of Iraq War movies. In fact, I'd actively discourage you from starting a spec about the Iraq War.

Here are the facts when it comes to The Hurt Locker. The film reportedly cost $15 million dollars to make, but has made barely $13 million domestically, with just under $7 million coming from international sales. A $5 million profit might be nothing to sneeze at, but for the fact that it's probably more than eaten up by marketing and distribution costs. One could blame the limited release for that fact, but studios have expanded limited releases before when the demand has proven to be there. There wasn't that amount of audience support for The Hurt Locker, despite all the press it got as the Oscar-frontrunner against the highest grossing movie of all time!

For a few years now, I've let out a heavy sigh each time I've opened a script to the slugline: "EXT. IRAQ - DAY" or "EXT. FALLUJAH - DAY." I know I'm probably in for spending a few hours reading and writing up something that my bosses would be loathe to make even if it was good... and let's face it, most of the Iraq specs I read aren't that good.

I challenge anyone to name a single Iraq War film that has been a hit. Let's even expand that to Iraq and Afghanistan War-on-Terror related movies.

Still nothing? Let's look at the numbers that the development exec, producer, or studio bean counter will look at when your Iraq spec crosses their desk.

Rendition - Budget: unknown. Domestic gross: $9 million. Foreign gross: $17 million. This was pretty widely considered a flop, so odds are it cost a lot more than it made.

In The Valley of Elah - Budget: $23 million. Domestic: $6.7 million. Foreign: $22.7 million.

Lions For Lambs - Budget: $35 million. Domestic: $15 million. Foreign: $48 million. This was a huge flop for Tom Cruise and his United Artists' pictures. Not only did it open at 4th in the box office, but it was Cruise's lowest-grossing film since 1986!

Home of the Brave - Budget: $12 million. Domestic: $51, 708. Foreign: $447, 992.

Redacted - Budget: $5 million. Domestic: $65,388. Foreign: $714,212

Stop-Loss - Budget: $25 million. Domestic: $10 million. Foreign: $291,386.

Body of Lies - Budget: $70 million. Domestic: $39 million. Foreign: $75 million. This wasn't a total flop, but you can bet that even with Foreign bringing in some cash, the studio was not happy with the box office on this.

The Kingdom - Budget: $70 million. Domestic: $47.5 million. Foreign: $39 million.

The reality is that your audience has spent the last seven-plus years trying to ignore this War on Terror. We're stuck in a quagmire of two wars with no sign of getting out anytime soon. They're not going to pay $14 admission to see something they've only been too happy to ignore for free on CNN.

All of this is exactly why I have precisely ZERO expectation that Green Zone will do well at the box office.

Tuesday Talkback: Oscar pics

Now that we're into November, we're pretty much closing in on that time of year when all the Oscar bait movies are released. Most studios employ the strategy of holding their prestige pics until just before the end of the year so that they're still fresh in voters minds when it comes time for the nominations. I'd venture that in any given year, 3 out of 5 or maybe even 4 out of the 5 Best Picture nominees are released in November or December.

Now, this year there are going to be ten nominees for Best Picture, which means that perhaps there'll be a higher percentage of movies nominated from the films that were released earlier in the year. With that in mind, today's Tuesday Talkback question is: If you had to pick the Best Picture winner right now, what would it be?

Two rules:
1) If it hasn't been released yet, you can't nominate it.

2) If you haven't actually seen it, you can't nominate it. This isn't a "who do you think will win" poll. This is a "Who would YOU give the trophy to" Poll.

3) No tangents about "Worst Films of the Year." I promise we'll get to those in due time.