Has Oscar lost its box office?

Final voting is in full force and so are the parties with "The Reader" gang, Penelope Cruz, Mickey Rourke and others all getting feted here and there on the circuit. "Frost/Nixon" has a big celebratory gathering tonight at Nobu.

Nominated stars and even directors like Danny Boyle are hitting talk show couches all week. Even notoriously TV-shy Sean Penn, who hasn't done much tub thumping for "Milk" other than going to awards shows, turned up on PBS' "Tavis Smiley" show Wednesday night talking process and acting motivation.

All the best-picture contenders are seeing their TV ads cannibalize each other all over the dial. It's clearly the place the studios think they will reach those elusive 5,810 academy voters. Oh, and maybe The Grove, where you can't even park your car before you're blasted with countless images of a smiling Penn channeling Harvey Milk.

Still, considering all the effort and money thrown at campaigning for Oscar, the post-nomination box-office returns this season have drawn a collective yawn, and award consultants for everyone other than Fox Searchlight are increasingly showing their frustration these days.

One begins to wonder whether this is the last year we will see what has come to be known as the traditional kind of Oscar campaign.

Only Searchlight's "Slumdog Millionaire" seems to be gaining any traction. Since the day after the Jan. 22 nominations, it has tripled its screen count to 1,635 from 582, bringing in more than $20 million of the impressive total of $68 million it has collected so far.

Considering it has been in the marketplace longer than any of the other best-picture nominees (since Nov. 12), its carefully planned rollout and marketing strategy have been the textbook version of how to maximize Oscar nominations at the box office. It was the No. 5 film after the weekend and by Tuesday had climbed to its highest ranking yet, No. 2, behind "Taken."

The only other certified hit among the academy's top five (but considerably more costly than its competition), "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" drew 13 nominations, the most of any contender and three more than "Slumdog Millionaire," yet it grew by less than half as much in the same period after the nomination announcement and didn't even make the top 10 this week. True, "Button"  has been in wide release since Christmas Day, unlike its Oscar best pic mates, and had already raked in $105 million by nomination day. Its Oscar gift is the international rollout -- it has been big in Australia with $10 million, is holding strong in other markets like Germany and Mexico and ready to take on "Slumdog" in the U.K. this weekend. The Oscar imprimatur is still very big internationally.

Unfortunately the news is not so hot for the three other best picture contenders who all timed their widest release to the Oscar announcement:

• "Frost/Nixon" has earned only about $5 million since then for a total of $15 million despite an increase of over 900 screens.
• "Milk" has added less than $3 million (for an overall $24 million) since the noms even with an increase of 600 screens last weekend and a nonstop ad blitz.
• "The Reader" has added just over $4 million to its $13-million total while increasing its screen count Friday by about 650.

These critically acclaimed specialty dramas could become an endangered species if audiences remain indifferent despite all the Oscar hype. There seems to be a new mindset emerging in Hollywood with the demise or consolidation of so many studio specialty divisions,and the so-called indie movie that has driven so many recent Oscar races may be a thing of the past.

Robert Downey Jr., supporting actor nominee for Paramount's summer hit, "Tropic Thunder," was heard saying this week that he thinks the bigger studio movies are where quality is starting to happen and indicates that may well spell the future for awards as well.

If academy voters are not given much of an art house choice they will have to turn to the bread-and-butter fare, which in the case of films such as "The Dark Knight" have proven they can be just as critically lauded and worthy as any of the loftier, weightier fare distributors have been offering up purely as Oscar bait.

Of course it didn't help "Dark Knight" this year, which despite eight mostly technical nods was egregiously shut out of the top categories including best picture, where many thought it would place. And it probably would have if the fates had not swooped in and saved "Slumdog Millionaire" from being sent straight to home video by Warner Bros. or had Harvey Weinstein not insisted "The Reader" be released in 2008 instead of 2009. Of course Searchlight came to the rescue on the former, and Harvey instinctively knew he had surefire academy fodder in the latter.

Speaking of Weinstein, the modern master of Oscar campaigning was RUMORED to be slyly approaching some of his "Reader" competitors at a recent awards show suggesting they pull back their own advertising on the logic that "Slumdog Millionaire" has it all sewn up. The idea is, if H.W. doesn't have a whole lot of extra cash to spend campaigning for "The Reader," get everyone else to slow down on their nominee too, thereby creating an even playing field for the other four. You gotta admit that if it's true, it's awfully clever -- and cost-conscious -- kinda like getting more bang for your, uh, bang.

One awards consultant I spoke to today lamented the poor box office for so many of the contenders and predicted the landscape would look completely different, as soon as next year. The consultant who has been pulling trade and print advertising and moving it to TV and online said no one really knows how campaigns will be run in the future, but it probably won't be the same blueprint being used now. The financial rewards aren't justifying the expenditures, which is why you are seeing such thin trade papers even at the height of the final Oscar voting period.

Certainly for lovers of quality "Oscar movies," it's sad to see the third weekend of "My Bloody Valentine 3-D" outgrossing the likes of "Frost/Nixon," "Milk" and "The Reader" -- fine films with 18 academy nominations among them -- while playing on roughly the comparable number of screens. And don't even get me started on "Paul Blart: Mall Cop."

Perhaps someday Hollywood will find a way to merge its penchant for popcorn populist movies with its ego-driven desire to win Oscars.

"Paul Blart: Nazi Hunter," anyone?

-- Pete Hammond 

Photo: Ralph Nelson / Universal Studios

Comments

[David Miami Beach]

Well, maybe the studio specialty divisions should just be wiped out, with the Studios making a smaller number of films but at higher quality (how about spending some of that CGI money on top talent at the writing and acting levels). That way everyone wins out and a snake oil salesman such as Harvey Weinstein, currently pushing middling fare with the right"message", will become (hopefully) as irrelevant as Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. There are enough problems in America today that can be dramatized and are relevant enough to make people want to go see them, other than another endless film about events that transpired more than a half century ago.

[Beth]

It's been my understanding some of the more expensively produced films also maintain a high distribution cost that is not always met.

I believe the issue is one of marketing.

TDK and Button were on my worst films list of last year. It's my understanding Button needs to clear 300M to break.

Doubt, The Reader, RR, Wendy and Lucy, In Bruges are all high on my list.

[Amos]

The Faustian bargain Ho'wood made with it's "audience" has come home to roost. While Ho'wood has never paid too much attention to art, it has continually dumbed down its movies in search of a larger audience. Now that dumbed down audience wants to see a show where the directors, writers, actors, etc. of those dumbed down pictures are awarded Oscars. In other words, Ho'wood's new audience wants to be congratulated for its ignorance and bad taste -- not have its face rubbed into what passes for quality. And unlike other awards shows, the Academy actually recognizes and rewards quality from time to time. Moreover, the pictures, performances, etc. that are being nominated are way better than 99% of the rest of the drivel out there. To paraphrase Preston Sturges in "Sullivan's Travels": "If they knew what they liked, they wouldn't like [fill in the blank]."

[Calvin Green]

Paul Blart: Nazi Hunter... not bad.

Perhaps it will appear here in due time:

http://failedscreenwriter.com/

[ritaluisa]

Hollywood keeps giving us corny dog movies, lackluster actors, stupid plots and wonder why we even care? Oscar is so overated, the presenters are so boring, and all romance of the past is dried up....it's a waste of time and money.

[jic]

Amos, the whole point of the movie was that the character who said that line was wrong.

[Jo]

I've not seen any of the movies nominated for Best Pic, except for 'Slumdog.' The other stories just don't interest me... And by the way - i'd go see 'The Dark Knight' on big screen again. Goes to show you what the Average Joe thinks of the current crop of contenders...

[Jennifer]

Oh, and of course the terrible economy has nothing to do with people not running out to watch every Oscar-nominated movie? Consumers are spending less, period. The cost of a movie ticket could feed a family of 4 for one meal (I just read an article about that). To ignore that aspect when considering how to campaign next year -- or any coming years -- is extremely short sighted. Anyone who would make decisions/predictions based on a challenging recession year clearly isn't very good at their job.

[TheBaldProd]

"These critically acclaimed specialty dramas..."

Huh?

Will people stop saying that The Reader was critically aclaimed. It got distinctly iffy reviews (and deserved them).

[woodstock1969]

If the tickets for Nikon/Frost or Milk were priced at -$25 (meaning they pay me 25$ if I go see them), I might consider going.