Tyler Perry’s decidedly un-Oscar Madea Goes to Jail (Lionsgate) is the box office story of Oscar weekend selling a massive $14.65M in opening day tickets with a possible $38M in sales expected for the weekend. But what about the Best Picture nominees, the supposed cool kids on the box office block?
Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) is the odds-on Best Picture winner, and it expanded to about 600 additional playdates this weekend for a total screen count of 2,224. The other four contenders for Hollywood’s biggest prize, however, are on a combined 2,508 screens. That means that they are essentially done with their theatrical engagements in the US (barring a truly shocking upset). Even if you wanted to see the other four nominees, you might have trouble finding them at your local multiplex – especially if you live outside a major city.
The United States has approximately 40,000 individual movie screens. Only 11% of them are showing a Best Picture nominee this weekend. That speaks to how decidedly unpopular these movies are. For comparison in 1998, there were about 34,000 screens in the US, and on Oscar weekend 7,586 of them had a Best Picture nominee showing. That’s 22% of all American screens showing a Best Picture contender.
Here is how the Oscar weekend screen counts for 1998 and this year stack up.
Titanic – 3,169 screens
Good Will Hunting – 1,805 screens
As Good As It Gets – 1,604 screens
L.A. Confidential – 723 screens
The Full Monty – 285 screens
2009
Slumdog Millionaire – 2,244 screens
The Reader – 962 screens
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 754 screens
Milk – 411 screens
Frost/Nixon – 381 screens
Slumdog Millionaire has moved from quirky underdog to beloved box office juggernaut. This weekend, Danny Boyle’s Mumbai masterpiece will close in on the magical $100M barrier.
OSCAR WEEKEND PERFORMANCE FOR BEST PICTURE NOMINEES
2,224 screens
$2.1M Friday
$7.5M 3-Day
$97.46M cume
$118M Projected Cume
962 screens
$705,000 Friday
$2.53M 3-Day
$22.9M cume
$29M Projected Cume
754 screens
$320,000 Friday
$1.12M 3-Day
$124.1M cume
$129M Projected Cume
411 screens
$265,000 Friday
$928,000 3-Day
$28M cume
$34M Projected Cume
381 screens
$494,000 Friday
$17.22M 3-Day
$21M Projected Cume
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