Even if you wanted to see the Best Picture nominees this weekend, you might have trouble finding a theatre!
by Steve MasonTyler Perry’s decidedly un-Oscar Madea Goes to Jail (Lionsgate) is the box office story of Oscar weekend selling a massive $14.65M in opening day tickets with a possible $38M in sales expected for the weekend. But what about the Best Picture nominees, the supposed cool kids on the box office block?
Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) is the odds-on Best Picture winner, and it expanded to about 600 additional playdates this weekend for a total screen count of 2,224. The other four contenders for Hollywood’s biggest prize, however, are on a combined 2,508 screens. That means that they are essentially done with their theatrical engagements in the US (barring a truly shocking upset). Even if you wanted to see the other four nominees, you might have trouble finding them at your local multiplex – especially if you live outside a major city.
The United States has approximately 40,000 individual movie screens. Only 11% of them are showing a Best Picture nominee this weekend. That speaks to how decidedly unpopular these movies are. For comparison in 1998, there were about 34,000 screens in the US, and on Oscar weekend 7,586 of them had a Best Picture nominee showing. That’s 22% of all American screens showing a Best Picture contender.
Here is how the Oscar weekend screen counts for 1998 and this year stack up.
1998
Titanic – 3,169 screens
Good Will Hunting – 1,805 screens
As Good As It Gets – 1,604 screens
L.A. Confidential – 723 screens
The Full Monty – 285 screens
2009
Slumdog Millionaire – 2,244 screens
The Reader – 962 screens
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 754 screens
Milk – 411 screens
Frost/Nixon – 381 screens
Slumdog Millionaire has moved from quirky underdog to beloved box office juggernaut. This weekend, Danny Boyle’s Mumbai masterpiece will close in on the magical $100M barrier.
OSCAR WEEKEND PERFORMANCE FOR BEST PICTURE NOMINEES
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
2,224 screens
$2.1M Friday
$7.5M 3-Day
$97.46M cume
$118M Projected Cume
THE READER
962 screens
$705,000 Friday
$2.53M 3-Day
$22.9M cume
$29M Projected Cume
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
754 screens
$320,000 Friday
$1.12M 3-Day
$124.1M cume
$129M Projected Cume
MILK
411 screens
$265,000 Friday
$928,000 3-Day
$28M cume
$34M Projected Cume
FROST/NIXON
381 screens
$494,000 Friday
$17.22M 3-Day
$21M Projected Cume
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12 Comments
At least I know I'm far from alone in not bothering to go to the movies anymore. For the price of a ticket to see a movie that will either insult my intelligence or simply insult me, I can rent a DVD, stay home and turn on the DVD player, the TV and the surround sound system and watch without hearing the sound of unruly patrons shouting catcalls at each other or at the screen. And there is still sufficient choice among DVDs to be able to find at least one movie a week that won't insult me or my intelligence.
"Frost/Nixon" is already playing at my local neighborhood "dollar" theatre. That's the last gasp before it disappears from screens in my city altogether. "Revolutionary Road" (not a BP nominee, but a nominee in some areas) is already there as well.
Steve, Steve, Steve – didn't you get the meme? It's no long about Hollywood asking us what movies we want to see – it's about them telling us. You know, like the NY Times tells us about news.
I recently went to see The Wrestler because I thought I had read around four weeks ago that it was an Oscar favorite. That might have just been Mickey Rourke for best picture. At any rate it seemed the libs at Hoillywood all fawned over it.
What amazed me (although it shouldn't) is how depressing the picture is. The movie's star is a loser and the moral of the movie I guess is "Once a Loser always a Loser". It really made no sense. There was a moment when they could have turned it around but that wasn't done. Instead the writers made the movie about celebrating failure.
I am actually upset I wasted the money. Rourke himself was good in his acting. The characters were actually well thought out. The movie had it not taken the ending it did could have been saved but in an attempt to make it "real" and "meaningful" by taking the tragic angle they forgot to make the lead character "human" and "believable".. Sometimes sad is not meaningful it is just sad. That is the problem I think with many liberal Hollywood films.
In this time of national economic crisis who wants to go to a movie and walk away with depressed, sad, forlorn,tragic, hopeless. etc. etc. etc. feeling. Where are the the comedies, musicals and uplifting movies that will make us smile, laugh and walk away with a positive hope for the future and with a good feeling. Hollywood and its
"powerful" movies can take a flying leap. I agree with Carolyn. Hollywood like Congress has lost its contact with the people and go there own "meaningful" way trying to drag us along. Obviously, they don't pay attention to the box office attendance and continue to grind out the same "meaningful" movies.
[...] Big Hollywood with some Oscar predictions here. Big Hollywood with what’s hot on Oscar weekend … “Madea Goes To Jail,” and the news that if you wanted to see the nominees, you might have to hunt them down. [...]
But, you know, with a relatively minor rewrite Madea could go to Gitmo.
The truth is… I could download ANY of these movies and have it playing on my big screen TV by this afternoon.
I don't get to go to the movies often but I got to see Taken last Thursday. I walked out of the theater thrilled that I finally got to see it. There is nothing so fulfilling as seeing the good guy take out the bad guy and for such a righteous reason too. And I must say that they could have added a lot of junk to that movie to make me nauseated but they didn't. Taken is on my list of to see again movies!
It is definitely not a movie about failure. It's a movie about a guy who has a place in life where he's loved, but it isn't a traditional one. Family doesn't work for him, but in the ring there are a lot o people who really care about him. It's a movie about triumph, more than anything.
I think if you're looking for a fun comedy, I would recommend Confessions of a Shopaholic. I went with my teenage daughter and and some friends. We were all astonished at how we laughed (in a good way) throughout the show.
I'm frankly surprised that "Frost/Nixon" was even nominated for Best Picture at all. Who really wants to see a movie about a series of TV interviews with a disgraced former President Richard Nixon from more than 30 years ago whose most memorable line, "When the president does it, it's not illegal!" was the guiding principle of the even more disgraced Bush administration that America just said "Goodbye and Good Riddance' to?
And in the case of "Milk," why would anyone spend their hard-earned money to see a movie about a gay politician — also from more than 30 years ago — whom nobody heard of until after he was assassinated?
Political dramas based on real-life events — with the singular exception of "All the President's Men" — have NEVER been very successful at the box office. They're better off having been made for TV.
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