Box Office: ‘The Artist’ leads other nominated films on Oscars weekend

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The winner of the Academy Award for best picture won’t be revealed until this evening, but it was ‘The Artist’ that beat other nominees still in theaters at the box office.

The Weinstein Co.’s black-and-white homage to the silent-film era picked up $3 million. Receipts grew a healthy 23% while the movie added only 158 theaters to its previous run of 808. That’s a sign that audience interest remains very strong. The movie’s average take per location on its 14th weekend in theaters was $3,106, and total domestic box office is now $31.9 million.

Not far behind was the George Clooney drama ‘The Descendants,’ which took in $2.2 million, or $2,475 per theater, at 889 locations. The Fox Searchlight release has taken in a very impressive $78.5 million in total at the box office.

Martin Scorsese’s big budget 3-D family film, ‘Hugo,’ grossed $1.6 million at 501 theaters, down only 5% from the previous weekend. Its average take of $3,134 was the highest of any of the best picture nominees this weekend. But its box-office total of $69.4 million is still disappointing for a movie that cost more than $150 million to make.

‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,’ based on the book about the 9/11 tragedy, took in just $254,000 as it finishes its box-office run with a total of just over $31 million.

The other five best picture nominees -- ‘The Help,’ ‘Midnight in Paris,’ ‘Moneyball,’ ‘War Horse’ and ‘The Tree of Life’ -- are no longer playing in theaters.

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-- Ben Fritz