2013 Oscar Race Info

For your consideration some figures that talk about current race to win Oscars.

Box Office

Most figures you will find in the news, especially today, belong to Domestic Market, meaning only US Box Office results; but as you can see all over the blog I am more interested in Worldwide figures so decide to share with you some findings. All figures source is Box Office Mojo.

As stated in many of today news, as of this past weekend using only Domestic figures there are five (5) movies, out of the 9 nominated for Best Picture that crossed the US$100 million and two (2) more that are very close plus estimates predict will pass the mark before/after the Oscar show. This give us an estimate of seven (7) that could cross the mark, an event that has no precedent and Oscar current edition could end up having the biggest box office ever for a best picture race. But in a very clear way also speaks about the type of films that are nominated as usually big money implies big crowds and mainstream movies.

Let's incorporate Foreign figures to Domestic to see what happens. All are estimates as of Feb 17, 2013, all are expressed in US Dollars and rounded to millions of dollars.The chart at the bottom of post shows the data divided in two groups.

First group of movies ranks movies by Domestic Box Office but you can clearly see that rank changes dramatically when you add foreign box office to make Life of Pi the leader by far, followed by Les Miserables and Django Unchained. But most interesting is to find that seven (7) out of the 9 nominated for Best Picture already passed the US$100 million mark worldwide. These nine films have made up to this moment a whooping US$2.0 Billions worldwide and we have to consider that there is a week-end box office before Oscar show plus those that win awards will likely get an after-Oscar push/bump.

Second group of movies show other movies with nominations but NOT nominated for Best Picture. Please note that some figures are not updated to Feb 17.

We all know that America is a huge money market for the industry but I will not be surprised if some of you didn't imagine that "the rest of the world" (at least the countries that are measured in BOMojo) contribute with those amounts of money. Anyway the second set of nominated movies contributes with another more whooping US$6.8 Billion, to make this year (up-to-this-moment) Oscar nominated movies to have a humongous box office of US$8.8 Billion. The last amount even surprised me and somehow makes me realize the reason why not many talk worldwide and stay talking domestic.

So business is HUGE, but data allows us to see that on a worldwide basis out of the 29 films in list, 20 have already crossed the US$100 million mark, meaning that these films can be considered good money makers and undoubtedly making these movies mainstream. No wonder I'm so tired after watching so many mainstream movies (lol) just to be able to follow current American Awards Season. Of course there are some exceptions and one notorious exception is Amour but also movies like The Master and The Sessions among others.

We can conclude that box office results tell us that in current edition MOST (20 of 29) nominated movies are US$100 million mark breakers and belong to mainstream cinema.

Made in U.S.A.

Out of the 29 movies only 4 are non-American productions, 5 are USA co produced and 20 are 100% American productions. We all know that Oscar is an American award, even if many insist to see it as a World Cinema award that tells us the best in the world. Oscar honors American movies, American Cinema and once in a while magnanimously includes non-American productions with some even winning top awards; like last year when Best Picture winner went to a France, Belgium and USA co production, The Artist. But we have to recall that movie story was honoring American Silent Cinema and not Silent Cinema or any other country cinema like, for example, Blancanieves that honors German Silent Cinema.

In current Oscar edition the four non-American films are Amour and Les Miserables in Best Picture (and others) plus in other categories The Impossible and Anna Karenina. From those four we are sure that Amour will get foreign language, Anna Karenina could get costumes, Les Miserables could get something and maybe the one that will go empty handed is The Impossible. So no chances to repeat last year milestone event, when a French majority production won top award. Most awards will go to USA productions and co productions.

So films are made in U.S.A. and U.S.A. movies will get most awards. Of course the huge surprise could be IF Amour wins top award or other categories and there are chances that could happen, especially in Best Actress category.

Closing

Started trying to do an Oscar Race profile but there are not many elements to consider as if we include gender we already know the norm that speaks about more male than female nominees, just take a look at the Oscar class of 2013 group photos to see what I'm talking about. The same applies to studio versus independent movies, as we already know that most films are not indies. So decided to share some of the info that has been in my head for weeks and surfaced today when news started to talk about the many Best Picture nominated movies (5, possibly 7) that have crossed the US$100 million mark, domestic of course.  Actual figure says that 20 movies have already crossed the milestone mark, worldwide of course.

Sigh.

In Millions of US Dollars
Movie	Domestic	Foreign	Worldwide	%Domestic	%Foreign
Lincoln	176.2	58.8	235.0	75	25
Django Unchained	157.0	208.6	365.6	43	57
Les Miserables	145.5	233.3	378.8	38	62
Argo	126.9	77.1	204.0	62	38
Life of Pi	110.8	465.1	575.9	19	81
Silver Linings Playbook	98.4	40.4	138.8	71	29
Zero Dark Thirty	88.0	13.0	101.0	87	13
Beasts of the Southern Wild	12.1	0.0	12.1	100	0
Amour	3.9	13.1	17.0	23	77
Nominated for Best Picture Total	918.8	1,109.4	2,028.2	45	55
The Avengers	623.4	888.4	1,511.8	41	59
Skyfall	303.4	797.3	1,100.7	28	72
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey	299.8	659.6	959.4	31	69
Brave	237.3	298.1	535.4	44	56
Ted	218.8	316.6	535.4	41	59
Wreck-It Ralph	185.5	225.6	411.1	45	55
Snow White and the Huntsman	155.3	241.3	396.6	39	61
Prometheus	126.4	276.9	403.3	31	69
Mirror Mirror	64.9	101.2	166.1	39	61
ParaNorman	56.0	51.1	107.1	52	48
Flight	93.8	45.4	139.2	67	33
Moonrise Kingdom	45.5	21.5	67.0	68	32
Frankenweenie	25.2	31.8	57.0	44	56
The Pirates! Bands of Misfits	31.0	90.6	121.6	25	75
The Impossible	17.5	143.0	160.5	11	89
The Master	16.3	9.4	25.7	63	37
Anna Karenina	12.7	40.9	53.6	24	76
The Sessions	5.9	3.1	9.0	66	34
Hitchcock	5.9	8.1	14.0	42	58
Chasing Ice	1.2	0.0	1.2	100	0
With 1 or more Nominations Total	2,525.8	4,249.9	6,775.7	37	63
Grand TOTAL	3,444.6	5,359.3	8,803.9	39	61