Who's got the big mo' as Oscar voting begins?

With ballots for the 81st Academy Awards finally in hand, and Hollywood virtually shut down for the holidays, who has the momentum and the last-minute strategies going into the stretch before ballots must be returned by 5 p.m. Jan. 12?

If opening to the second-highest Christmas Day gross of all time was a key "strategy" for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," then Paramount looks like a genius today. No matter what academy members want to tell you, a good showing at the box office for a genuine contender can have a psychological effect on whether it gets their vote and just how high on the ballot it gets.

Everyone wants to go with a winner, right?

Certainly the $40 million that "Button" has earned in its first four days can't hurt its chances and probably pushes it even higher up the list. At the very least it gets it seen. The fact is "Button's" end-of-year wide-release strategy has paid off, making it the only real talked-about best picture candidate in the four-day weekend's box-office top 10 just as voters start making their choices ("Doubt," in a semi-wide break of nearly 1,300 screens, came in 11th). That ought to take some of the sting out of the hometown Times' Kenneth Turan's bah humbug Christmas Day pan of the film, right? (Memo to Paramount: Turan also hated "Crash.")

This brings us to our next  smart strategy — or not.

Call it the March of the Specialty Pictures. Go for limited theatrical exposure in December and wider breaks in January with all the attendant award hoopla that will begin when the Broadcast Film Critics Assn.'s Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globes lead the parade of kudo-fests next week. This means  "The Reader," "Revolutionary Road," "Frost/Nixon," "The Wrestler," "Milk" and "Gran Torino," among others in the huge end-of-2008 glut, can mostly brag about per screen averages while piling up critical acclaim and early award attention before they really jump into the fray.

On that basis, look out for "Torino," which had a whopping $29,000 per screen (in 84), and "Revolutionary Road," which nailed $64,000 per in its three-screen break, enough to hand it bragging rights for the best specialty opening of the year, not to be confused, though, with "Slumdog Millionaire," which after seven weeks has nearly $20 million, making it the top-grossing specialty release of 2008.

Others like "The Reader," with middling per-screen averages, are just trying to hang in there in the game of perception before the hoped-for trophies start piling up and bumping the grosses.

That brings us to our next strategy. Don't worry about box office numbers or perception, just get the voters to see your movie on the academy screeners now showing on a DVD player near you. With so many out there to watch, a smart game plan is all important here. Should you be first, like "Frozen River" was this year when Sony Pictures Classics sent the summer release out to voters waaaaay back  on Sept. 24, or last, as 20th Century Fox was in getting "Australia" finally into mailboxes just a couple of days before ballots were sent last Friday?

Certainly the early critics award attention, along with SAG and Spirit nominations for "Frozen River" star Melissa Leo, seem to validate SPC's decision to go early on "River," emulating their 2005 strategy for the tiny indie "Junebug," which managed to nab a longshot supporting nod for Amy Adams. 

Take a walk through your 'hood and you're likely to find three or four neighbors who are having  "Reader" viewing parties. The Weinstein Co.'s strategy of blanketing the industry with that film's DVD could pay off, just like it did for Lionsgate with "Crash." The difference is "Crash" was a May release and "The Reader" is just slowly expanding from its Dec. 10 limited release. The disc was readily available before opening day, a tactic Harvey Weinstein knows is essential. With SAG, BFCA and four key Globe nominations to entice them, the key is to grab as many academy eyeballs as you can for the film Weinstein has believed all along has great Oscar potential.

The majors, notoriously fickle when it comes to putting big holiday releases out on screeners pre-opening, took notice, and now even pirate-fearing studios like Universal with "Frost/Nixon" and Paramount with a juggernaut like "Benjamin Button" had their screeners out before the films were in a single multiplex. It's no coincidence that the award strategists behind those films both worked previously with Weinstein during his gold rush heyday at Miramax.

This leads us to yet another strategy: getting the film seen in theaters as academy voters vacation during the holiday break. As always the smartest consultants have set up screenings anywhere there's a potential vote, such as in Hawaii, Aspen, Malibu and Santa Barbara. If you you're on location in Prague or Louisiana, they will find you. If you didn't bring your DVDs along, don't worry, because there's always a local theater that award campaigners can hijack.

And what about trade ads, once the key component of any campaign?

With Hollywood pretty much a no-work zone this week, the trades such as Variety and the Hollywood Reporter are barren as far as ads go (the Reporter is not even putting out a print edition). With so many people out of the office, why bother with pricey Oscar ads, even though this is prime time to make a last pitch as the voting process is in full swing? So it was fascinating to see Overture pull a sneak attack and try to trump its competitors in Monday's Variety with a rare cover ad (for the Christmas/New Year's period) touting its big hope, "The Visitor," an early '08  release that has gotten lots of award talk, including SAG and Critics Choice nominations for its star, Richard Jenkins.

Inside the issue there was just one other ad, a quarter page with available screenings for, you guessed it, "The Visitor." With Variety subscribers all to itself, Overture must be guessing that not everyone with a ballot is out of commission this week. And in fact they may be right with this out-of-the-box strategizing. During awards season Variety is also sent as a bonus  to most Academy members homes so it was likely seen by lots of voters during this crunch time. 

So how are all these strategies going to pay off in the end?

Here's your first clue. A veteran academy member called this morning to tell me he had finally seen everything including "Valkyrie," the last "official" screening of the season, Sunday at the Goldwyn Theatre. Here in order is how this person is voting in the best picture category today:

1. "The Reader" ("Magnificent. What a story! I was blown away.")

2. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" ("I don't care what the detractors say. I loved it.")

3. "Slumdog Millionaire" ("Terrific")

4. "Frost/Nixon" ("A fascinating film, and Langella is great.")

5. "Defiance" ("Surprised you with that one, didn't I?")

This voter also mentioned certain films he couldn't STAND, but in the spirit of the new year, we'll just highlight the ones he liked.

In terms of all the campaigning and marketing to this relatively small and opinionated body of 5,810 voters, the bottom line is if you're a consultant and your film is one of the five listed above, your "strategies" are working. If your film isn't on that list, take heart. There are 5,809 more ballots ripe for the taking.

Happy New Year. And here we go into the thick of it all.

—Pete Hammond

 

Comments

[JMcCWriter]

Great column...but surprised to see this Acadeny member didn't include "Doubt" in his top five list.

[CabriniProjects]

Great summation of the season...looking forward to the first of the awards shows to see how good your Academy member's predictions are.

[dan]

The Reader?!?!?! if other AMPAS members are voting like this guy, i'm going to boycott the Oscars this year.

Defiance 5th?? More like 5th from the bottom, what a lousy lousy film.

This is very bad news for TDK and Milk fans

[someone]

This is just one guy! that dosen't mean that it'll actually happen. The Dark Knight SHOULD get nominated and everyone knows it. It has Higher ratings on rotten tomatoes and metacritic and a much higher box office count (for better oscar ratings) than the curious case of benjamin button, Frost/Nixon, The reader, and defiance. Only Slumdog millionaire is better(on metacritic not rotten tomatoes). Also where's milk huh milk is good too. So this isn't official it's just one member hopfully other members will choose better choices

[Marv]

This is just one guy! that dosen't mean that it'll actually happen. The Dark Knight SHOULD get nominated and everyone knows it. It has Higher ratings on rotten tomatoes and metacritic and a much higher box office count (for better oscar ratings) than the curious case of benjamin button, Frost/Nixon, The reader, and defiance. Only Slumdog millionaire is better(on metacritic not rotten tomatoes). Also where's milk huh milk is good too. So this isn't official it's just one member hopfully other members will choose better choices

[jdls08]

I don't give a hoot of what the Academy chooses as its best but if they don't vote in and nominate my favorites as best pics.....Gran Torino, "Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons", "Changeling", "Dark Knight", and I will leave one space to fill later, I will scream at them at the Kodak theater on OSCAR night. The reason I picked two Eastwood film is because those two films are fricking outstanding and very deserving.

[JanLisaHuttner]

Dear Pete,
I know for a fact that letters from all around the world have been sent to the HFPA asking why Loveleen Tandan was not nominated with Danny Boyle for SLUMDOG's Best Director when both IMDb & the official EPK list her as Co-Director (right at the top, below Danny & above Simon). Maybe you can get an answer from the GLOBE folks before the AMPAS folks finalize their noms???
Happy New Year!
Jan Lisa Huttner
Chicago