Oscars 2012: ‘The Artist’ online ticket sales boosted by noms

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The fabled ‘Oscar bump’ is already looking real for ‘The Artist.’

Ticket sales for the Weinstein Co.’s black-and-white, largely silent film, which received 10 Academy Award nominations including best picture, jumped 190% on Web retailer Fandango.com in the five hours following the announcement of the nominations Tuesday morning.

Also getting a boost was the George Clooney drama ‘The Descendants,’ which received six nominations, including best picture, and sold 65% more tickets than during the same five-hour period Monday morning.

Not every movie benefited from the academy’s attention, however. Despite receiving 11 nominations, more than any other film, the Martin Scorsese-directed 3-D family film ‘Hugo’ didn’t see any immediate increase in ticket sales on Fandango.

Of course, ‘Hugo’ has also proved the most popular of those three movies, taking in $55.9 million to date. ‘The Descendants’ is close behind with $51.3 million.

But ‘The Artist’ has grossed only $12.1 million thus far, meaning there are a lot more potential moviegoers who haven’t yet seen it.

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— Ben Fritz