No matter which film takes home Best Picture Sunday night, that title will be the lowest grossing ever in Oscar history. According to Comscore, Kathryn Bigelow’s 2009 title The Hurt Locker stands as the lowest-grossing Best Picture Oscar winner at the domestic B.O. with $17M. That title will likely be upset this Sunday by Chloé Zhao’s
Oscars
While it’s not really a time to take a victory lap at the box office with only 3,1k movie theaters opened out of U.S. and Canada’s 5,8K, five out of the eight Oscar nominated best pictures this past weekend in theatrical release reaped the halo effect of Monday’s noms. Keep in mind many arthouses, especially
EXCLUSIVE: “Don’t be in a panic!” These are the sage words from Sony Pictures Classics’ Co-President Michael Barker about the future of independent films at the theatrical box office. While the pandemic and the proliferation of streamers has sent a number of awards season contenders into the home, he believes that arthouse fare will be
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Croods: A New Age led the box office for its fifth weekend out of 13 running, and crossed $50M, inching closer to becoming the top-grossing movie of the pandemic, and potentially upsetting Warner Bros.’ Tenet ($57.9M total domestic). However, in a business where the transparency of numbers has always been public,
Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg is back in the Oscar race with Another Round (Druk), a film whose star, Mads Mikkelsen, calls “an embracement of life.” The drama has an intriguing premise: four weary high school teachers test the theory that a constant level of modest inebriation opens our minds to the world. The friends experience
What a great time not to be a movie marketer. Theaters half-closed, with COVID-19 again rising. Pipeline dried up. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences asking, in a survey that was due last week, how the pandemic is affecting your craft. Or what’s left of it. But movie promoters on the whole are an
Will the movies ever let religion back into the mainstream? It doesn’t seem likely, given the secular bent of most critics, festivals, and film awards. But the question could certainly occur to any thoughtful viewer of Marco Pontecorvo’s Fátima, which is set for release by Picturehouse in theaters and via PVOD on Aug. 28. The
In or around 1976, I caught a forlorn moment near New York’s Bleecker St. It was early morning. The sun was just up. Two ragged guys were shuffling toward me on the sidewalk, when one offered the other a bottle in a bag. But the drink was declined. “I guess I lost my taste for
Talk about box-office drama. As the July 4 weekend unwinds, IFC’sThe Truth might be slugging it out with Homewrecker from Dark Star and The Outpost from Fathom for the honor of ranking somewhere in the 300s, near IFC’s own Wiener-Dog, among all-time Independence Day performers. (Who can say for sure, as release dates have become
If the film industry is ever going to be what it was—just a few short months ago, when pictures as varied as Parasite, 1917, Joker and Little Women were among those vying for honors—it’s going to need more than union safety protocols, disposable seat covers in theaters, and new Oscar inclusion standards, all of which
So, what happens now? With the three-and-a-half-weeks early, lowest-rated Oscar show in the bag, the movies and those who love them are caught in an unaccustomed February vacuum. Normally, there would be cocktails, canapés, and the whispers of publicists looking for last-minute advantage over competitors. But Sunday’s Academy Awards implosion—what else to call a show
Who says theatrical is dead? Despite Bong Joon Ho’s historic Best Picture Oscar winner Parasite already being available on DVD and SVOD, there’s a huge appetite among moviegoers following Sunday’s awards ceremony to watch it on the big screen this weekend. As of EOD Monday, advance ticket sales for Parasite had jumped 443% week over week
Newly minted four-time Oscar winner Bong Joon Ho is being hailed in his native South Korea and elsewhere today for Parasite’s history-making achievement in becoming the first foreign-language film to win the Best Picture Academy Award. From social media salutes to an official message from President Moon Jae-in, the Bonghive is abuzz. Moon congratulated Parasite
While a post-Oscars box office boost was already expected for Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite tonight even with Best International Film and Best Director wins, now with a Best Picture win, the pic has a shot to go into the $40M-plus zone, possibly even more. The NEON release, after winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film
After roaring into the 2020 Oscar show with a company record of 24 nominations, Netflix wound up walking away tonight with only two wins: Laura Dern with Best Supporting Actress for Marriage Story and Best Feature Documentary American Factory. Call it a bad case of deja vu: Netflix charged into this year’s Golden Globes with a massive
We knew this was going to happen. By Oscar Sunday, if not before, Greta Gerwig’s feature revival of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women will cross $100M at the domestic box office, a huge 33% surge in its domestic tally since notching six Oscar noms on Jan. 13 including Best Picture. While Gerwig already demonstrated her flair
Oscar nominations continue to make a difference at the box office, and the box office continues to be important to Oscar contenders. At a time when prestigious, financially risky award bets are often destined to Netflix, nothing beats having that extra exhilaration from great ticket sales, as studios vie to raise the profiles of their
The rituals of awards season are ideal for surrounding hits with glitz, but some big-budget movies with mixed reviews can get lost in the smoke and mirrors. Consider the case of three of history’s priciest creature features — Dolittle, Underwater and Cats — all opening quietly amidst Oscar distractions, and leaving potential write-offs surpassing $100
Sony Pictures said Tuesday that Greta Gerwig’s Little Women will be released February 14 in China. The news comes a day after the latest adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s iconic novel scored six Oscar nominations including Best Picture. The film recently passed $100 million at the worldwide box office, with its current global cume at
EXCLUSIVE: Klaus, Ford v Ferrari, and animated shorts Sister and Hair Love repped Oscar nominations earned by alumni of The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) yesterday. Since the creation of the Best Animated Feature Oscar category in 2001, 12 of the winning films were directed by CalArts alums with the last seven consecutive Animated
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences certainly isn’t short on documentarians. Atop its existing 400 or so documentary branch members, the Academy in July invited almost 100 additional doc-makers to join. Despite some internal concern that a few invitees might need help with the dues, now $450 a year, it seems safe to
Having brain-screamed at yet another driver blowing through a stop sign at 30 miles per hour in my quiet, child-filled residential neighborhood, I got to wondering: Whatever happened to Garp? Released 37 years ago, on in the summer of 1982, George Roy Hill’s film version of John Irving’s novel The World According to Garp seemed to