Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal in Crazy Heart
It's hard to tell if the Academy Award nominations have done much for most of the nominated films. Several Oscar nominees had a minor box-office increase the day the nominations were announced and smaller ones on the following day or so, but with perhaps four or five exceptions — The Blind Side, A Single Man, An Education, Up in the Air, and most notably Crazy Heart — that has been about it. Avatar has done great business in the last couple of weeks, but it's the kind of business the blockbuster had been doing prior to the Oscar announcement.
Curiously, the Oscar nominations seem to have had their strongest effect by far on a film that wasn't nominated for Best Picture: Scott Cooper's Crazy Heart. Although it's impossible to say exactly how much the Jeff Bridges vehicle would have made without its three Oscar nods (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress for Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Best Original Song for "The Weary Kind") it's unlikely it'd have reached even close to its current $17.5 million.
Below is a list of the five Best Picture nominees that are still playing, with their total box-office take on Feb. 2, the day of the Oscar announcements, and their most recent figures, estimates for Feb. 15. Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man, Pete Docter's Up, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, and Neill Blomkamp's District 9 ended their run before the Oscar nominations announcement.
- Avatar, d: James Cameron, with Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Laz Alonso. 20th Century Fox, nine nominations. Feb. 2: $598 million; Feb. 15: $667.6m.
- The Blind Side, d: John Lee Hancock, with Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron. Warner Bros., two nominations. Feb. 2: $238 million; Feb. 15: $245.1m.
- Up in the Air, d: Jason Reitman, with George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick. Paramount, six nominations. Feb. 2: $73 million; Feb. 15: $79.5m.
- Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, d: Lee Daniels, with Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey. Lionsgate, six nominations. Feb. 2: $45 million; Feb. 15: $46.5m.
- An Education, d: Lone Scherfig, with Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Emma Thompson, Alfred Molina. Sony Pictures Classics, three nominations. Feb. 2: $9 million; Feb. 15: $10.6.
Photo: Crazy Heart (Lorey Sebastian / 20th Century Fox)
Box Office Figures: Box Office Mojo